Shraman Bhagvana Mahavira Part 1

SR No.: 008001
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Ratnaprabhvijay, D P Thaker
Publisher: Parimal Publication
Publication Year: 1989
Total Pages: 650
Language: English, Sanskrit
Classification: Book_English, Biography, History, & Religion
File Size: 15 MB

Page 71

accidents or qualities originate and perish, To explain -Any material thiny continues for ever to exist as matter, which watter, however, may assume any shape and quality. Thus clay as substance may be regarded as permanent but the form of a jar of clay or its colour may come into existence and perish.
The Jaina theory of Being appears thus to be rerely the statement of the common-sense view, and it would be hard to believe that great importance was attached to it. Still, it is regarded as the metaphysical basis of their philosophy. Its significance conies out more clearly when we regard it in relation to the doctrines of Syādváda and of the Nayas.
Syādvăda is frequently used as a synonym of Jaina Pruvacana (e. g. at a later late in the title of a well-known exposition of the Jaina philosophy, entitled Syād-vāda Manjarı) and it is much boasted as the saving truth leading out of the labyrinth of sophisms.* The idea uuderlying the Syād-vāda is briefly this.-Since the nature of Being is intrinsically indefinite and made up of the contrary attributes of originating, continuance and perishing, any proposition about an existing thing nust, somehow, reflect the indefiniteness of Being i. e. any metaphysical proposition is right from one point of view, and the contrary proposition is also right from another. There are according to this doctrine, seven forms of metaphysical propositions, and all contain the word syât e. g. syād asti sarvam, syād nāsti sarvam Syāt means "way be " and is explained by katham cit which in this connection may be translated “some how". The word syāt here qualifies the word astı and indicates the indefinitness of Being (or asti-tvsm). For example we say, a jar is somehow i, e, it exists if we mean thereby that it exists as a jar; but it does not exist somehow, if we mean thereby that exists as a cloth or the like.
The purpose of these seeming truism, is to guard against the assumption made by the Vodāntists that Being is one with.
* Dr. Jacobi possessed very scant knowledge of Syad-vāda.