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CHAPTER 5
THE SEVEN-PLANK EPISTEMOLOGICAL FRAME-A SEARCH FOR ITS RATIONALE
(With special reference to Saptabhangītaranginī)
V. Venkatachalam
The seven-pronged logic or sapta-bhangi-naya as it is usually termed by traditional writers, is a unique feature of the methodology followed by Jaina thinkers to explain all forms of empirical knowledge. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that no other philosophical school in India had ever conceived an epistemological frame with seven planks. The maximum number of planks posited by other schools stood at four. The credit or discredit--in whatever way one might choose to call it-for raising the number of planks to four goes to the Madhyamika Buddhists, who invented a catuṣkoți frame of logic, in line with their metaphysics. Earlier thinkers had contented themselves with trinary, binary or even unitary frames for their theory of knowledge. The steep climb from a four-plank epistemological frame to a seven-plank one, familiarly known as sapta-bhangī, is the distinct contribution of Jaina philosophical thinkers. An attempt is made in this paper to discuss whether at all it is possible to find a rational basis for the seven planks of this sapta-bhangi frame. As a part of this search for the rationale of sapta-bhangī, we will have to find satisfying answers to the following questions: 1. Is the addition of the last three bhangas of the sapta-bhangi frame
a logical ‘must', to explain empirical knowledge? Is it logically impossible to explain empirical knowledge with the four-plank
OTS.
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