Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 1

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

Page 268

ANEKĀNTA AND MADHYAMA-PRATIPAD
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That is, what is known as pratityasamutpada is also called by us Śünyata. The same is also named upada ya-prajñapti which is identical with madhyama-prat ipad.
Another aspect of pratityasamutpada and madhyami-pratipad is the non-acceptance of any of a set of two extreme concepts or views. Nagarjuna pays homage to the Buddha as the promulgator of the negation of all sets of conflicting concepts in the following verse
अनुरोधमनुत्पादमनुच्छेदमशाश्वत-- मनेकार्थमनानार्थमनागममनिर्गमम् । यः प्रतित्यसमुत्पादं प्रपंचोपशमं शिवं
देशयामास संबुद्धस्तं वन्दे वदतां वरम् ।। I offer my homage to the foremost among the speakers, the enlightened one, who promulgated the doctrine of pratityasamutpada which is idential with the quietening of worldly life and the supreme good, which is free from beginning and end, permanance and impermanence, unity and plurality, coming and going.
The Yogācāra Buddhist also eulogizes the Bnddha's doctrine as the negation of the cognized (grāhya) and the cognizer grähaka.
Thus, the madhyamapratipad, originally a doctrine of life came to be interpreted by later Buddhist thinkers as a doctrine of reality, from the ontological as well as the epistemological point to view.
Anekanta, on the other hand, was an ontological doctrine from the beginning. It was an attempt to explain causation and also a doctrine of relation. A substance can have different modes and yet preserve its unity and identity with those modes. The criterion of unity is inseparability. There can be distinction without difference. Modes are different among themselves and disiinct from the substance, but they are not different from the latter. The relation between substance and modes is identity-cumdistinction. The Buddhist does not agree with the Jaina and consequently fails to find any unity in the knowing, feeling and willing of the same person, which leads him to the denial of the entitative character of personality. Knowing, feeling and willing also are finally rejected by the Madhyamika Buddhist as unreal. Thus, while the theory of anekanta was an attempt at the synthesis of the conffict apparent in experience and reason, the madhyama-pratipad, as inter: preted by later Buddhist thinkers, accentuated the conflict and denounced both the extremes as untenable and unacceptable. If anekānta gives an impression of eclecticism, the madhyama-pratipad was made to play a role which it was perhaps originally not intended to do.
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