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think of affirming both existence and non-existence at the same time from the same point of view, you must say that the thing cannot be spoken of. Under certain circumstances, the affirmation of existence is not possible ; similarly, of non-existence and also of both.
What is meant by these seven modes is that a thing should not be considered as existing everywhere at all times, in all ways, and in the form of everything. It may exist in one place and not in another at one time. It is not meant by these modes that there is no certainty, or that we have to deal with probabilities only as some scholars have taught. Even the great Vedāntist Sankarācarya has possibly erred when he says that the Jainas are agnostics. All that is implied is that every assertion which is true is true only under certain conditions of substance, space, time, etc.
This is the great merit of the Jaina philosophy, that while other philosophies make absolute assertions, the Jaina looks at things from all standpoints, and adapts itself like a mighty ocean in which the sectarian rivers merge themselves. What is God, then ? God, in the sense of an extra cosmic personal creator, has no place in the Jaina philosophy. It distinctly denies such creator as illogical and irrelevant in the general scheme of the universe. But it lays down that there is a subtle essence underlying all substances, conscious as well as unconscious, which becomes an eternal cause of all modifications, and is termed God.
The doctrine of the transmigration of soul, or
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