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Nature of Reality as Conceived in Jaina Philosophy
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infinite universe, 1 for it is recorded in the Taittiriya Upanisad : “That from which these beings are born, that by which when born; they live, that into which when departing, enter. That, seek to know that is Brahman".?
It appears from the study of the evidences furnished by all the three Indian sources--Jaina, Bauddha and Brāhmanical, in regard to the modifications of an entity (bhāvavikāras) that either there was the tradition of six modifications of an entity (Şațbhāvavikāras) in the beginning and they were reduced to three modifications of it later on or there was the tradition of three modifications of an entity in the beginning and they were later on increased to six modifications.
Dr. Satkari Mukerjee bas very clearly explained the relation of the three aspects of an entity of which they are predicated on the basis of the views of Akalanka and Vidyānanda on this problemn in his masterly way : "If persistence, cessation and birth were each of them identical with the substance of which they are all predicated, then, being identical with the same substance, all of them be identical with one another. Thus persistence would be the same thing as cessation and birth, cessation would be identical with persistence and birth, and birth would be identical with cessation and persistence. So the triple character is reduced to an idedtical single mode. And if each of these modes were regarded as numerically different from one another and if each of them were believed to be real, then again each of these modes would have triple character. And infinite vicious series would be inevitable as each of the triple modes would have another triple character and so on to infinity unless the triple modes were severally and jointly asserted to be unreal characterisation. Either a single mode in the place of the triple character, or in infinite regress, or its unreality is to be asserted. But the Jaina answers the critic by asserting the manifold position. So far as persistence, etc., are regarded as identical with the substance, it is legitimate that persistence and cessation and birth should be regarded as identical. And if attention is concentrated on the aspect of difference of these modes from the substance and from one another, then each of them would have a triple character. There is
1.
“Asya jagataḥ......janmasthitibhangam sarvajñāt sarvasakteḥ kāraņādbhavati tadbrahmeti /",
Sānkarabhāşya on Brahmasūtra, 1.1.2. "Śrutinirddeśastāvat yato vā imāni bhūtāni jāyanta iti”, Ibid,
2.
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