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The Axioms of Anekānta
53
is not excluded from the own nature, viz. the pot, the word 'pot' would be applicable as designation to all things. And in spite of such exclusion, if the own nature of the pot is not cognized, the latter would be a non-entity like a hare's horn. The specifically intended pot again passes through a number of phases. Any one among these phases is the own nature while the preceding and succeeding phases are its alien
natures.
An intermediate phase of the independent pot again is constantly subject to growth and decay. Therefore the state of the present moment is the own nature while the past and future states are the alien natures. If the existence of the pot is determinable by the past and future moments, exactly in the fashion of the present moment, then all pots – past, present and future – should together be existent at any one moment. The same logic will apply to the nature of non-existence. In other words, if a particular non-existence were determinable by all the past and future non-existences in the same fashion as the present non-existence is determined by its own nature, the upshot will be that any particular moment of non-existence is a totality of all non-existences - past, present and future. Existence and non-existence must each have its own nature, in the absence of which they would lose their identity. Again, the momentary pot has a good many qualities and modes like colour, taste, smell, form etc. We know its existence by seeing its colour with our eyes, and in this
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