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960
THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
name of a person to whom it might belong. As no jar containing butter would ever cease to exist by the removal of its contents, nor one belonging to a person by changing hands, the result would be a logical calamity resulting from the application of a rule especially suited to a particular set of circumstances to one not falling within its scope. It will be observed that in common parlance it is as permissible to say a jar of iron as it is to say a jar of butter or a bowl of Jolin, though the three statements are made from different points of view. The first holds true from what is known as the dravyârthic naya, the point of view which takes into consideration the nature of the substance of which a thing is made, while the other two are true only from what may be called the vyavahâra, that is the practical standpoint. This is sufficient to show that the inability to distinguish between different points of view must eventually lead to confusion.
It might be urged that confusion such as this seldom occurs in philosophy, and that we have needlessly magnified the possibility of error. It is true that the instance selected to illustrate our point is an easy one, and one hardly likely to be committed by a rational being; but its type has been repeated by all systems of thought which have not expressly adopted the principle of nayavâda or which have deliberately sought to disprove its validity. Such, for instance, is the case with the Advaita Vedanta which deliberately challenges the Jaina method, and which is, consequently, plunged into the quagmire of confusion resulting from the mixing up of what is known as the paryâyarthic naya (the standpoint
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