________________
CHAPTER X
309 indicates the undoubted necessity for a precise scheme of linguistic symbols (vacanavinyāsa). But the scheme of linguistic symbols is only the garb of the modal judgments which represent a system of alternative and exhaustive aspects of truth of a particular factual situation investigated by syödväda. The content being such judgments syödväda is essentially an epistemological method. This pre-eminently epistemological character of it becomes more evident when we remember that the knowledge obtained by its use is conceived to be the human analogue of the perfect knowledge (kevalajnāna) attained by the perfect souls (kevalins), the difference between the two being that the one is mediate (asākṣāt) and the other immediate (sāksāt').
The purport of the entire argument is that the distinction between conceptual' and verbal' is a relative one, and therefore that when it is associated with the two methods under consideration, it should be done subject to the consideration outlined in course of the argument.
The logical justification for the formulation of these two methods of nayavāda and syādvāda consists in the fact that the immense complexity of the relativistic universe is too baffling for the human mind, with its limited range of perceptual and other capacities, to penetrate at once, into its full secrets. In the process of grasping the bewildering universe analysis, or nayavāda, naturally precedes synthesis, or syādvāda, and the two methods together offer an articulated knowledge of the universe. After this comparative estimate
1. Cf. syâdvādakevalajñāne sarvatattvaprakāśane / bhedaḥ sākṣādasā
kşāc ca.....// AMS, kā. 105.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
