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OBJECT OF VALID COGNITION
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Elucidation An entity (vastu) has a multiplicity (aneka) of facets and aspects (anta) which together constitute its essence (atma). An object is therefore multiform in nature. Multiplicity is rather an abbreviated expression for infinity. An entity exists as one unitary substance from infinite past and will continue to do so eternally for future. Change is an essential characteristic and change implies the dissolution of a past mode, the emergence of a novel mode and continuity of the substratum. If a mode comes into being in supersession of its predecessors and without belonging to an underlying reality, the modes will be independent events each occurring and ceasing to be at its own time. There will be no change. A thing is thought to change only if it relinquishes its present mode and appropriates another. The modes by themselves have no history because they have no career, past or future. A change necessarily presupposes a past and a future. A mode was not existent before and will not be existent after and as such is changeless. The Buddhist fluxist swears by change and yet reducing every thing to an atomic moment repudiates the concept of change as a chimera.
The Jaina philosopher asserts change to be the integral character of all reals. As change occurs every moment, the number of modes is infinite. So understood from the perspective of change an entity has an endless series of modes as its characteristic attributes. Again considered as a member of an infinite expanse of reality which is an ordered system the relational attributes of a single entity must be practically infinite. Thus judged both by internal and external standards of calculation, even the smallest unit, say a particle of dust, comes to be known as possessed of an infinite number of qualities and modes which can be fully judged by none but an omniscient. And this fullest knowledge is the aim and objective of all rational beings.
A thing cannot be divorced from its attributes and qualities and modes because they are parts and parcels of its being, and from the point of view of persons of limited vision they appear as so many facets. When one stumbles upon a fact and becomes aware of the whole situation which refuses to be divided into segments and fractions and thus to undergo total disintegration in the process, the thing presented to our view is a total entity with its infinite characteristics. The different aspects in which things seem to present themselves are rather the resultant factors of human judgement and as this judgement is determined and directed by preconceived ideas, interests,
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