Reals on the Jaina Metaphysics

SR No.: 001619
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: Shatnidas Khetsy Charitable Trust Mumbai
Publication Year: 1966
Total Pages: 430
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Religion, & Epistemology
File Size: 8 MB

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is against the matter of experience; for, the words, cow etc. are felt to yield positive ideas about their objects. If they yielded only negative ideas, other words are necessary for the positive knowledge about those objects. If it be said that the same word yields both the negative and the positive knowledge, we say this is impossible; affirmation and negation are essentially different and one and the same word cannot generate two such contradictory forms of knowledge.
JAINA's REJECT THE NYĀYA THEORY
But although the Jaina's agree with the Naiyāyika's in opposing the Mimāṁsā and the Buddhist doctrines of words, they do not accept the Nyāya contention that it is the worldcreator who has fixed the original meanings of words., They do not believe in the existence of the world-architect, so that it is impossible for them to ascribe to the significance of a word, a divine origin. How then has a word come to have the meaning attributed to it?
NATURAL AND CONVENTIONAL POWERS IN A WORD TO SIGNIFY OBJECTS
The Jaina's take notice of the fact that one and the same word has different senses in different countries, nay, in one and the same country. This goes to show that in the matter of fixing the meaning of a word, people using the expression have a hand. This is Samaya or the course of the meaning of a word, determined by a man. He alone understands the object on hearing its corresponding word, who is already conversant with this Samaya. The Jaina's further point out that in the case of a word and its meaning, the establishment of the Samaya is not all. A Samaya is the significance fixed by man. But in order that a word may signify an object something more is metaphysically necessary. The word itself must have the competence to signify an object. It must have a natural capacity or स्वाभाबिकसामर्थ्य to express an object. The Jaina's maintain that not all sounds have this capacity. According to them, although