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Aptamīmāṁsā
presents a synoptic picture of reality from different points of view. Syāduāda expresses a protest against one-sided, narrow, dogmatic and fanatical approach to the problems of reality. It affirms that there are different facets of reality and these have to be understood from various points of view by the predications of affirmation, negation and indescribability.
Anekānta is the basic understanding of the complexity of reality and the necessity of looking at it from different points of view. Syādvāda is the expression of the anekāntavāda in logical and predicational form. In this sense, anekāntavāda is the foundational principle and syāduāda is the logical expression of the foundational principle.1
In the presentation of the nature of an object in its infinite aspects we have to adopt the sevenfold predicational form (saptabhangi) which includes the positive and the negative predications without contradicting each other. The nature of the object can be considered from seven points of view and their predications would be sevenfold. Everything can be presented through sevenfold predications. These predications have been worked out on the basis of permutations of the fundamental threefold predications of affirmation, negation and indescribability. A limb (bhanga) refers to the partial presentation or a particular form of expression. Saptabhangī is the sum total of the seven limbs of logical expression. It is the expression of the psychological basis in nayavāda.
1. See Shastri, Devendra Muni (1983), "A Source-book in Jaina
Philosophy”, p. 240.
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