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reality, in one word, who is omniscient. But this does not mean that the Jaina here offers a counsel of perfection, which amounts to a counsel of despair for persons like us, whose resources are limited. Though the full knowledge of all the possible characteristics even of a particle of dust cannot be claimed by any one of us, the knowledge of one attribute or another can be attained, if we are dispassionate and free from bias of a particular angle of vision, and are prepared for approaching it from other standpoints. The standpoints are called Nayas. A Naya is a viewpoint or a way of approach from which a person looks at a particular aspect of a thing, impelled by a consideration which is in its turn determined by his interest, inclination, and aesthetic, intellectual as well as moral equipment. It is entailed by our mental constitution and the exigencies of the human understanding that we should isolate one aspect of the reality and concentrate upon it. There is nothing to impugn its validity or expediency, provided it does not make us blind or hostile to the other aspects which present themselves to other viewpoints. The conflict becomes irreconcilable when the advocate of a particular aspect develops a fanatic zeal, and refuses to view the subject from other angles of vision. The rivalry and antagonism among philosophers, followers of different religious creeds, and also politicians derive from this exclusive emphasis upon a particular glimpse of the truth.
As we are interested in the logical problem, we select examples of philosophical interest to drive home the truth of our position. An entity can be viewed as possessed of diverse characteristics as they are unfolded to different ways of approach. For instance, a pen is an existent fact, and this shows that it has the character of existence which it shares in common with all other entities. Again, it may be regarded as a pen possessed of penhood which it shares with other pens. Again, it is found to possess a distinctive individuality which distinguishes it from all other things-pens and notpens. Now the first character of existence is entirely devoid of diversity. The second character is diverse and unitive. So it may be called genericcum-specific. The third is entirely specific as it belongs to the particular pen. The pen is thus found to possess an entirely generic- (aviśuddha), an entirely specific (visuddha) and generic-cum-specific (viśuddhā viśuddha) character. None of these is to be dismissed as an untrue estimation of the character of the pen. This truth is also attested in ordinary assertions of workaday life. Asked about his residence, a man may observe that his residence is in Asia or India or Bengal or Calcutta or Chowringhee or a particular house with a particular number. Ultimately he may observe, for the sake of exactitude, that as a soul he lives within his own body. Now all the observations are true, though the first statement presents a broadly generalized concept and the last the most specific one, the intermediate locations representing a graduated scale of specification. This way of
तुलसी प्रज्ञा जनवरी-मार्च, 2004
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