Pramana Wiki

Jain

17 min read

Jain (གཅེར་བུ་པ་)

Twelve verses of the pramanavartika are addressed to the Jains: four at I.181–184, one at II.17, and seven at II.274–280, of which one answers an internal Buddhist question. That is all of it in the two chapters translated here, and none of it is built from scratch: I.181 opens by saying that the reasoning just used against the Sāṃkhya disposes of the Jains too. Chapter 3 adds a single objection, preserved in Gedun Drub’s commentary. dignaga does not engage the school anywhere in the pramanasamuccaya material surveyed here. sakya-pandita names the Sky-Clad (མཁའ་གོས་ཅན་, Digambara) in the colophon of the Pramāṇayuktanidhi among the systems the treatise was written to crush, then refutes them at one place only, on whether austerity can exhaust karma. Meanwhile the school itself is still there: four to five million people practise it (Wikipedia).

Overview

Jainism belongs to the śramaṇa movement of Greater Magadha, the same milieu as early Buddhism, and its two traditions count twenty-four tīrthaṅkaras. The twenty-third, Pārśvanātha, is dated by historians to the eighth or seventh century BCE; the twenty-fourth, Mahāvīra, was a contemporary of the Buddha under the Magadhan kings Bimbisāra and Ajātaśatru. Jain tradition puts Mahāvīra’s birth in 599 BCE and his death in 527 BCE (Śvetāmbara) or 510 BCE (Digambara), and holds that he was born 273 years after Pārśvanātha; historians shorten both figures, proposing a birth around 549 BCE and a death around 477 or 468–467 BCE, with some correlating the dating to the Buddha’s and pushing it to about 425 BCE (Wikipedia). The Digambara–Śvetāmbara schism, which the Digambara tradition places around the fourth century BCE and attributes to a famine-driven migration, turned on monastic nudity: the Digambaras kept it, the Śvetāmbaras adopted white robes (Wikipedia). Jainism has between four and five million adherents today, mostly in India, a fact the translator of Gorampa’s commentary also notes in passing (gorampa-pramanavartika, translator’s introduction).

Four doctrines matter for what follows. Karma is conceived not as a moral quality but as physical matter, subtle particles (pudgala) that adhere to the soul; austerity (tapas) is accordingly the primary means of shedding it, and liberation is what remains when the soul is clear. Reality is dual, soul (jīva) against non-soul (ajīva). Substances are permanent under their underlying aspect (dravya) and impermanent under their modes (paryāya), so that a thing is both, according to which respect one asks about. And knowledge is many-sided: anekāntavāda holds that no single viewpoint captures reality whole, syādvāda indexes every predication with syāt, “in some respect”, generating the sevenfold predication (saptabhaṅgī), and nayavāda sorts the standpoints from which a claim may be true (Wikipedia). The Jain tradition accepted at least three means of valid cognition (ཚད་མ་): perception, inference and scriptural testimony (gorampa-pramanavartika, translator’s introduction).

Dreyfus places the Jains inside the Indian epistemological turn rather than outside it. The logic that grew out of the Nyāya provided intertraditional standards against which “competing claims of Indian philosophical schools, such as Nyaya, Mīmāṃsā, Jain, and Buddhism, could be assessed” (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, p. 13), and the movement Dignāga and Dharmakīrti belong to was one “of thinkers, Hindu and Jain as well as Buddhist” (p. 16). On universals the Jains do not sit with the Buddhists: extreme realism came first in India, and was “rejected by Buddhists or modified by Jains” (p. 134). What the modification produced, in Samantabhadra, is a moderate realism in which generality and particularity are relative notions: nothing is absolutely a universal (སྤྱི་), only aspects of substances count as universal or as individuation depending on the context, and universals cannot exist apart from the substances they characterise (p. 140). Dreyfus dates Samantabhadra to the eighth century (p. 496 n. 15); the standard Jain dating is c. 150–250 CE (Wikipedia), and this page does not attempt to settle the discrepancy [unverified]. On perception the Jains are among the nirākāravādins, holding that cognition apprehends its object without any intermediary aspect (p. 335); on memory they are unusual, counting it valid because it realises something new, namely the pastness of its object, a claim Dreyfus reports Udayana refuting on the ground that the pastness is not remembered but experienced in the present (p. 528 n. 29).

Core doctrines

One nature, temporarily distinct

The Jains, on Gorampa’s report, “propound incoherent tenets that state that curd and camels are of one nature but temporarily separate” (gorampa-pramanavartika, on PV I.181). The translator’s introduction to that commentary fills in the metaphysics: unlike the Sāṃkhya and the other monists, the Jains denied that a single eternal and unchanging substance pervades all existence, but they did assert a permanent substance subject to change and temporary expression, and Tibetan sources have them positing a self that inhabits the whole body, permanent in entity but temporarily transient, together with a dualism by which phenomena share a common entity while being manifestly distinct. The translation here of PV I.181 renders the school’s own name for the doctrine as “incoherence [anekānta]“.

Trees are sentient

The Jains argue against Buddhists that “the trees that grow in the world should be sentient, because when stripped of bark they die” (sodargye-pramanayuktanidhi, on chapter 10); the pramanavartika has the same inference as “that [trees] possess mind because they die when their bark is stripped” (II.17). The claim is not idle metaphysics for this school. The Nirgranthas were puritanical about their ethical code and went to great lengths to protect every form of life, “even that within the plant kingdom” (gorampa-pramanavartika, translator’s introduction), so the sentience of plants is what the practice of non-harm rests on.

Karma, body and mind are the causes of saṃsāra, and austerity exhausts them

Sakya Paṇḍita states the position in a line and a half: karma, body and mind are the causes of saṃsāra, and to abandon the first two the Jains undertake austerities (དཀའ་སྤྱོད་) (Pramāṇayuktanidhi chapter 9). Sodargye’s exposition gives the practices (bathing in water, burning in fire, cutting off one’s own limbs with blades) and the goal, which is not the Buddhist cessation but the fruition of Maheśvara and the like (sodargye-pramanayuktanidhi, on chapter 9). In the pramanavartika the same doctrine appears in its sharpest form: by the power of ascetic hardship (དཀའ་ཐུབ་, tapas) the karmic potentials are gathered together and exhausted (II.277).

The refutations

Dignāga

The pramanasamuccaya material surveyed here contains no Jain engagement. The word occurs once in the commentary and belongs to modern scholarship: the Jain scholar Jambuvijaya restored roughly a third of the text into Sanskrit from Tibetan after the Second World War (translator’s preface to the commentary on chapter 1). Whether that silence is a fact about the Pramāṇasamuccaya or a gap in the sources gathered here is not settled.

Dharmakīrti

Curd and camels (PV I.181–184)

Chapter 1 reaches the Jains at the end of the long refutation of the Sāṃkhya single nature (I.163–180), and the first thing Dharmakīrti says about them is that they need no separate treatment:

།དེ་ཉིད་ཀྱིས་ནི་འཛེམ་མེད་པ། །མུན་སྤྲུལ་གང་ཅིའང་རུང་སྨྲ་བ། །དེ་དག་ཀྱང་ནི་བསལ་བ་ཡིན། །མཐའ་གཅིག་པ་ནི་སྲིད་ཕྱིར་རོ།

།ཐམས་ཅད་གཉིས་ཀའི་ངོ་བོ་ཉིད། །དེ་ཡི་ཁྱད་པར་བསལ་བའི་ཕྱིར། །ཞོ་འཐུང་ཞེས་ནི་བསྐུལ་བ་ན། །ཅི་ཕྱིར་རྔ་མོ་ལ་མི་རྒྱུག

By that very [reasoning], the Shameless Ones [, the Jains,] conjured by darkness, who declare anything at all [possible], are also refuted, since a thing’s being determinately one way [, curd being curd and not a camel,] is possible. If everything had the nature of both [curd and camel], their particular [features] would be eliminated; so why, when urged, ‘Drink the curd!’, does one not run to the camel? (pramanavartika I.181–182)

The abuse is about clothing rather than argument: Gorampa’s translator notes that the school is called immodest “because they have no shame about their nakedness” (gorampa-pramanavartika, note 112). The argument underneath is a consequence, and Gorampa supplies the pervasion (ཁྱབ་པ་) it runs on: “you accept the pervasion because the individual features of curd and camels have been eliminated” (on PV I.182). A shared nature is being asked to explain why curd and camel belong together; if it does that by cancelling what distinguishes them, nothing is left to steer the thirsty man towards the bowl.

The Jain reply is in the text, and it is the right one:

།འོན་ཏེ་ཕུལ་བྱུང་འགའ་ཞིག་ཡོད། །གང་གིས་ཁྱད་པར་འཇུག་འགྱུར་ན། །དེ་ཉིད་ཞོ་ཡིན་དེ་གཞན་ལ། །མེད་ཕྱིར་གཉིས་ཀ་མིན་གཞན་ཡིན།

།ཐམས་ཅད་ཀུན་བདག་ཉིད་ཡིན་ན། །བློ་སྒྲ་ཐ་དད་པར་མི་འགྱུར། །ཐ་དད་བསྡུས་པར་སྨྲ་བ་ལ། །དེ་མེད་ཕྱིར་ན་མི་སྲིད་འགྱུར།

If you say, “There is some excellence [, such as its white, milky look,] by which one engages the particular”, then that is the curd; since it is absent in the other, [curd] is not both but other [than the camel]. If everything were of the nature of everything, minds and words would not differ. And for [you] who speak of [things] different [yet] combined, that would be impossible, since that [difference] would not exist. (pramanavartika I.183–184)

Some features are pre-eminent, says the Jain (the white colour and the milky appearance), and engagement follows those. Dharmakīrti’s answer is that the concession is fatal. If the white milky look belongs to curd and is not found in the camel, then curd already fails to be “both”, and the distinctness the shared nature was supposed to have absorbed is back doing all the work. I.184 states the same result on the side of language: separate cognition and separate expression of curd and camel presuppose exactly the distinctness that “merged into one nature” denies, so the ascertainment of entities as distinct would not exist for someone who holds the thesis (gorampa-pramanavartika, on PV I.184).

The argument is good against the formulation Gorampa reports. Whether it touches Jain philosophy is another matter, and the sources here give no sign of the machinery that would decide it: syādvāda exists precisely to index a predicate to a respect, so that curd is camel in some respect and not in the respect under which one drinks it, and nothing in the pramanavartika, in Gorampa, or in the Pramāṇayuktanidhi material engages the sevenfold predication or names a Jain author. The opponent here is a thesis, not a text [unverified].

Trees that die (PV II.17)

Chapter 2 uses the Jains as a worked example rather than a target. The verse before makes the general point that a reason’s being sayable establishes nothing: “if their mere presence established the object, everything would be established by everything” (II.16). Two inferences are then examined under that rule:

།འདིས་ནི་སེར་སྐྱ་ལ་སོགས་ཀྱི། །མི་རྟག་སོགས་ཕྱིར་ཡང་སེམས་མེད། །སོགས་དང་ཤུན་པ་བཤུས་ན་ནི། །འཆི་ཕྱིར་སེམས་ལྡན་དཔྱད་པ་ཡིན།

By this [reasoning] are also examined [the claims] of Kapila and others [, the Jains]: “[The intellect and pleasure] are without mind, because they are impermanent and so on” and “[Trees] have mind, because they die when their bark is peeled”. (pramanavartika II.17)

Gorampa gives three moves against the tree inference, and the third is the one that bites. The stated reasons are established as expressions but carry no pervasion; a death that ends a life is not something Buddhists grant of trees at all; and “if you use the expression ‘dying’ as a reason, then phenomena such as lamps show it to be uncertain reasoning” (gorampa-pramanavartika, on PV II.17). The lamp concedes the word and destroys the inference with it: lamps die, in the loose sense, and no one thinks they have minds.

Ascetic hardship cannot exhaust karma (PV II.274–280)

The longest Jain passage in the material surveyed here sits in chapter 2’s section on the antidote to craving, and it is an argument about arithmetic rather than about metaphysics. Dharmakīrti’s own thesis is that karma, body and speech are not what one abandons, since the path has no antidote to them directly and no power over them, and craving left standing produces birth again (II.274). Two verses then set up the problem for the opponent: because a variety of results is seen, karmas may be inferred to have distinct potentials, so a single act of ascetic distress will not exhaust them all; hunger diminishes the results of the kinds related to it and leaves the rest untouched (II.275–276). The Jain answer is to deny the plurality:

།འབྲས་བུ་ཉམས་སུ་མྱོང་བ་ནི། །ཅི་སྟེ་དཀའ་ཐུབ་ནུས་པ་ཡིས། །ནུས་པ་འདྲེས་པ་ཟད་པ་ན། །ཉོན་མོངས་ཆ་འགའ་སྤོང་བའམ། །ཉོན་མོངས་མེད་པར་ཀུན་སྤང་འགྱུར།

།གལ་ཏེ་དཀའ་ཐུབ་ཉོན་མོངས་ལས། །གཞན་འདོད་ཉོན་མོངས་ཉིད་ཅེ་ན། །དེ་ནི་ལས་འབྲས་ཡིན་ཕྱིར་འདིས། །ནུས་པ་འདྲེས་སོགས་འགྱུར་མ་ཡིན།

If you say, “Through the power of ascetic hardship the results are experienced [at once], the abilities being mixed together and exhausted”, then either some portion would be abandoned through the distress, or all would be abandoned without distress, if you hold ascetic hardship to be other than the distress. If you say, “[Ascetic hardship] is the distress itself”, then, since that is a result of karma, it cannot mix the abilities together and so on. (pramanavartika II.277–278)

The fork is between two readings of the practice. Hold the practice distinct from the distress it causes, and the claim that one experience of suffering ends all karmas gives either a partial result (some portion abandoned) or an absurd one (everything abandoned without the suffering doing it). Identify the practice with the distress instead, and the practice becomes a karmic result, which cannot be the thing that gathers karmas up. Gorampa’s gloss makes the second horn explicit: such an ascetic practice “will have no power to gather all karmas together and end them because this is the result of bad karma” (on PV II.278).

One caution about who is speaking. The translation here tags II.277–278 as a Jain objection, and the chapter-2 attribution map to the Pramāṇavārttika assigns II.274–280 to the Jains; Gorampa names no school across this stretch, writing only “it could be argued” and “it will be argued”, though the austerity he instances, plucking out body hairs, is a Nirgrantha practice. He does name the Jains at II.17. The attribution is therefore the translator’s, resting on the practice described and on the parallel passage in the Pramāṇayuktanidhi, not on a statement in the commentary.

Mental perception (PV III)

The one place in these sources that names a Jain sub-group is Gedun Drub’s commentary on chapter 3, where an objection to mental perception (ཡིད་མངོན་) is put in the mouth of “the non-ear-pierced non-Buddhist”, glossed in that file as Pārśva-jaina: if mental perception apprehends what sense-cognition has already experienced it is no valid cognition, and if it apprehends what was not previously seen, the blind should see colour. The answer keeps the second horn and blocks its consequence: mental perception does apprehend an object other than sense-perception’s, and the blind still see nothing, because mental perception arises with sense-cognition as its immediately preceding condition (Gedun Drub’s commentary on PV III). Chapter 3 is reconstructed here from a commentary that carries no verse numbers, so no verse is quoted; the identification of the opponent is that commentary’s own editorial bracket, and nothing else here corroborates it.

Sakya Paṇḍita

Chapter 9 of the Pramāṇayuktanidhi, having established the two limits of the mental continuum, turns to what the non-Buddhists do with past and future lives once they accept them. The exchange is four lines long:

།ལས་དང་ལུས་སེམས་འཁོར་བའི་རྒྱུ། །གཉིས་པོ་སྤང་ཕྱིར་དཀའ་སྤྱོད་ཟེར།

།མི་ནུས་མི་ཕན་མི་དགོས་པས། །ལས་དང་ལུས་འཛད་ལམ་མ་ཡིན།

[Objection—non-Buddhists, chiefly the Nirgranthas (Jains):] They say karma, body, and mind are the causes of saṃsāra; to abandon the [first] two, they undertake austerities (དཀའ་སྤྱོད). [Reply:] Because it is impossible, useless, and unnecessary, exhausting karma and [destroying] the body is not the path. (Pramāṇayuktanidhi chapter 9)

Sodargye unpacks the three words in order. Impossible: while self-grasping is not severed the austerities cannot exhaust the body, as cutting the branches, leaves, flowers and fruit of a tree whose root is intact only postpones the spring. Useless: grant that body and karma could be destroyed, and afflicted ignorance is still there as the cause, so one continues to take rebirth regardless. Unnecessary: what has to be severed is self-grasping, and once it is severed the body needs no such treatment (sodargye-pramanayuktanidhi, on chapter 9). The verses that follow supply the replacement diagnosis: ignorance (མ་རིག་པ་) is the cause of taking rebirth, loving-kindness and the rest cannot sever the root of saṃsāra because they do not contradict the apprehension of self, and selflessness (བདག་མེད་) can because it does (Pramāṇayuktanidhi chapter 9).

The two refutations of the same practice are not the same argument. Dharmakīrti’s is internal and quantitative: karmas are many, one hardship is one, and no accounting makes the sums come out. Sakya Paṇḍita’s is structural: the practice is aimed at the wrong object, whatever its quantity. A Jain who conceded Dharmakīrti’s point could still reply that his austerities are matched severally to the karmas they burn; against Sakya Paṇḍita’s version that answer is no help at all, because the objection is that karma was never the root.

Chapter 10 uses the school without arguing with it. Dividing the unestablished reason (མ་གྲུབ་པ་, asiddha) by which disputant (རྒོལ་བ་) it fails for, Sakya Paṇḍita needs a case that fails for the opponent rather than for the proponent, and the Nirgranthas’ tree argument is the textbook one (Pramāṇayuktanidhi chapter 10). Sodargye’s handling is more concessive than Gorampa’s. If “death” means only the gradual withering of a former continuum, Buddhists accept it; genuine death is the cutting off of the life of a being possessing consciousness, and trees only wither. He adds a qualification the pramanavartika commentary does not: certain beings of the isolated hells do take plant form through particular karma, as the sūtras state, so the exclusion of life from plants is a general claim rather than an exceptionless one (sodargye-pramanayuktanidhi, on chapter 10).

The colophon names the school among those the treatise was composed against, as the holders of the Sky-Clad system (མཁའ་གོས་ཅན་). Sodargye explains the name: the Naked non-Buddhists hold space to be the finest clothing, so that no other is needed (Pramāṇayuktanidhi chapter 11 with sodargye-pramanayuktanidhi, on chapter 11). Readings of the rest of the list differ on one word, ཐོས་སྒྲོག་པ་, which our translation tentatively renders “Vedic reciters” and which Sodargye, like Lowo Khenchen Sönam Lhündrup in his exposition of this verse, reads as the Buddhist Hearers (Śrāvakas). Lowo Khenchen’s list of the seven systems the verse names includes the Digambara under the Tibetan མཁའ་གོས་ཅན་. Either way the naming outruns the engagement: the Sky-Clad get one refutation and one worked example in the treatise that names them.

What the debate turns on

Both arguments that carry weight here are about whether a qualification can save a thesis from its consequence. “Of one nature but temporarily distinct” and “one hardship gathers and exhausts all the potentials” have the same shape: a strong claim, then a rider meant to keep the obvious counter-instance out. Dharmakīrti’s method in each case is to make the rider choose. Let the pre-eminent features really individuate curd, and curd is other than camel, which is what the one-nature thesis denied. Let the ascetic practice really be other than the distress, and the exhaustion is either partial or uncaused; let it be the distress, and it is itself an effect of karma and can gather nothing. A qualification that does work destroys the thesis it was added to; one that does none leaves the consequence standing.

Nothing in the material surveyed here tests that method against the Jain answer that is actually on the books. Syādvāda is built to make the rider do work without collapsing the thesis, by relativising every predication to a respect (substance, mode, time, place), and the sevenfold predication is the technique for keeping the respects apart. The sources here do not mention it, do not name a Jain philosopher, and give the school no work that was written by it. What they refute is a doxographic summary, and Gorampa’s own report of that summary is at second hand: he attributes it to Tibetan sources rather than to a Jain text (gorampa-pramanavartika, translator’s introduction).

Dreyfus says as much, and says it about a position closer to home. Discussing Sakya Paṇḍita’s charge that the Tibetan moderate realists are Sāṃkhyas in disguise, he notes that Buddhist moderate realism differs from the Sāṃkhya in not being monist, and adds in a note: “Its closest Indian equivalent is the position defended by the Jain philosopher Samantabhadra. Unfortunately, Tibetan authors have not given the Jain tradition the recognition that it deserves” (dreyfus-recognizing-reality, p. 499 n. 8). If that is right, the school these texts dismiss in twelve verses had worked out the account of universals that Tibetan Buddhist realists would spend four centuries defending against their own tradition, and neither side in that argument seems to have known it.

Graph View

Backlinks