Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 1

Author(s): Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 119

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VAISHALI INSTITUTE RESEARCH BULLETIN NO. I
inclinations and dispositional attitudes, the judgement varies from man to man. Our judgements are no better than the blindman's estimation of the elephant. One such blind person touches the trunk, another the leg, the third one the belly and the fourth man touches the ear and each gives a different account. This is called by the Jaina philosopher knowledge by naya, i.e. diverse approaches leading to diverse appraisals; we shall presently have occasion to dwell upon this interesting topic at full length.
Now we must face the question What is the warrant of the assertion that a thing is possessed of an infinite number of aspects and perspectives and this infinite complex forms a unit which confronts even the meanest understanding”. Why should a thing not be dissolved into infinite particulars. What is the cementing bond holding together these apparently recalcitrant plural units in one integrated whole ? The answer to this problem will be found in the course of our deliberation on the different nayas which culminate in abstract and partial assessment. The Jaina asserts that not only valid cognition but all cognitions, valid and invalid, alike necessarily confront an indeterminate complex. A cognition is called invalid not because it fails to cognize a complex real but because it disagrees in certain parts and attributes from the valid cognition. Cognition as such irrespective of the logical label must take stock of an indeterminate complex consisting of an infinite number of attributes. A valid cognition has necessarily to apprehend a multiple real in which the parts and the attributes are found together integrated in one whole. Of course there are philosophers who demur to accept the position of the Jaina epistemologist, but it will be found on closer examination that the assessment of reals as definite, determinate and simple entities is due to false pre-conceptions and theories which have received the imprimatur of their respective tradition. But it has to be endorsed that whatever is presented to the perceptual cognition free from defects should be accepted as the true object with all its characteristic features. In all our intuitions internal and external things are apprehended as unitary facts in which the qualities and attributes are blended together. The Vaišeşika and Naiya yika philosophers assert the existence of substance and attributes and their relation as distinctive entities and so refuse to subscribe to the position of the Jaina logician that all entities are complexes of substance, attributes and relations rolled into one. But their position is not as invulnerable as they think. The flaw in their theory will be exposed by a poser. If the numerically different attributes are supposed to subsist in