Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 1

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

Page 143

VAISHALI INSTITUTE RESEARCH BULLETIN NO, I
quality. When A stands in relation to B, the former necessarily acquires the new quality of relatedness and this entails change. The Jaina philosopher insists in consonance with the Buddhist that causal efficiency is the criterion of normal existence and as such there can be nothing which is not liable to change. Everything changes and yet maintains its identity and identity is not incompatible with difference entailed by change.
132
The approach of the Nyaya-Vaiseşika school to reality including spirit and matter is comprehensive and so we have called it pantoscopic. The Jaina metaphysician also follows this way of approach. But they differ in the assessment of the result. The Nyaya-Vaiśeşika school fails to give an all-round comprehensive system which is claimed by the Jaina as his achievement, directly resulting from the law of anekanta which asserts the dynamic nature of all entities by virtue of which things change to accommodate the relational qualities.
We now deal with the sangrahanaya, the synthetic approach. The Vedantist monist is the representative advocate of this sangrahanaya. Existence alone is the real and all the particulars are the pseudo-claimants of existence. If the particulars are different from existence, they will be reduced to fiction. Moreover particulars are found to be and also not to be. Being and not-being are contradictorily opposed, and as the test of truth is non-contradiction, the particular must be dismissed as unreal appearance. Moreover the Vedantist insists that perception which is the primary source of knowledge of things always takes note of being and not of non-being.1 A pure negation is a fiction. It is intelligible only with a reference to the object negated and its positive locus. Negation is therefore only an idea and a false idea at that, since negation is never confronted qua negation bereft of its foundation in positive reality. And a positive real is repugnant to negation. The latter must therefore be rejected as a spurious claimant of truth. But the Jaina non-absolutist refuses to be impressed by these arguments. He asserts that each thing is possessed of a double facet, existence and non-existence. For instance, a jar is a jar and not a textile. It is qua itself and is not qua another. The two are not irreconcilable opposites as they are endorsed by experience. If experience be denied its validity, the Vedantist cannot affirm the existence of consciousness of which there is no other proof than experience. If pure a priori logic arrogates to itself the authority to dictate terms to reality it will yield the palm of
1. ahur vidhätt pratyakṣam na nişedhṛ kadãeana-Mandanamiśra.