________________
334
JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
thus analysed into various standpoints and each standpoint in turn is examined with respect to its various strands of truth and, finally, all the strands are woven together into the synthesis of the conditional dialectic. Owing to their function of analysis and synthesis the methods of nayavāda and syādvāda may also be described as the disjunctive dialectic and the conjunctive dialectic, respectively.
Further, saptabhangī, or the theory of sevenfold predication, is treated as synonymous with syādvāda owing to the fact that the number of possible or alternative truths under the conditional method of syädvāda are, as will be noticed hereafter, seven only.
The fact that the term 'syädvāda' is often treated as standing for the entire Jaina philosophy is due to the great importance attached to the method of the conditional dialectic with which it (the term) is most intimately connected.' The controversy as to whether 'syadvāda' is a synonym of 'saptabhangī' or of the entire Jaina philosophy is, therefore, a needlessly scholastic one', at any rate from the philosophical standpoint.
. Cf. "The doctrine of the Indefiniteness of Being is upheld by a
very strange dialectical method called Syādvada, to which the Jains attach so much importance that this name frequently is used as a synonym for the Jaina system itself.”. Studies in Jm., p. 16. In his introduction to AJP, Vol. I, p. X, Kapadia states that the term syädvāda is synonymous with the term anekantavada, and, therefore, is wider in its scope than the term saptabhangi which is only a part of it. He is, however, not sure of his position although he had adduced a few authorities in his support. But as Jacobi suggests, as seen in the above f.n., syadväda could
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
