Jaina Philosophy of Language

SR No.: 001601
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Sagarmal Jain
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith
Publication Year: 2006
Total Pages: 168
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, & Language
File Size: 10 MB

Page 148

(122) : Jaina Philosophy of Language
A philosophical question may be raised here as to why a language prompted by anger, fear, greediness, etc. is called false or untrue? The statements spoken under the influence of anger, fear etc. do not often correspond to the facts but many times, they are true also. Even then, the Jainācāryas have not included them in the category of truth. They regard them as false. The reason, in my opinion, is that the language spoken by bad intention in spite of its correspondence with the facts should not be regarded as correct. In fact, the above ten types of false language, instead of defining the truthfulness or falsehood of language tell us the situations in which we indulge in false speech. These are the situations, which give birth to falsehood. Whenever a person indulges in false-speech, he does it because of at least one such reason.
In the above classification, two of the ten-types of false language need further clarification. The language of a short narrative (ākhyāyikā) is called false. When a person depicts short narratives, he invariably enriches it with his hardly possible imagination and as the result, narratives lose its authenticity. In novel writing, such tendency is quite prevalent. Similarly, the satirical language is also false because in it, our faultfinding tendency works. We thus, find that the Jaina treatment of truth and falsehood is not based merely on the correspondence of language with facts. It goes deeper into those reasons, which are responsible for the authenticity of language. True-false Statements
The statements, which are partly true and partly false are called Satya-mşșā-kathana (true-false statement). The famous narration of Mahābhārata, 'Aśvatthāmā maro-naro-vā-kunjaro '(Aśvatthāmā died either man or elephant) is a typical example of a true-false statement. It has a double meaning, hence called as “true-false”. Similarly, the indefinite statements also come under this category. Some Jainācāryas have considered the probable statements as a type of truth but in my opinion, these statements should be enumerated under the category of 'true-false'. Prajñāpanā-sūtra enumerates ten varieties of 'true-false,' (mixed) language. They are24. 1. Utpanna-misritā (Statements regarding estimates of birth) 2. Vigata-misritā (Statements regarding estimates of death)