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well as their cosmic aspects had been substantially rounded off during the fourth canonical stage, and it took its course in the fifth stage to give them a final touch by way of developing certain concepts, mechanisms and features on the theoretical level, and to explain the earlier concepts methodically on the higher technical level. In so doing, many experimental attempts were made, and many of them had to be discarded in order to produce one with lasting value.
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The Jaina theoreticians ware fundamentally natural philosophers from the beginning. This fact is evident from their way of employing anuyogadvaras throughout the canonical age. Anuyogadvara is an aspect-wise investigation of a thing, therefore all sorts of characteristics of one being can be utilized as the anuyoga items to examine other beings. We have been using the term anuyogadvāra or anuyoga item in this broad sense in the field of jiva. In the narrow and strict sense, anuyogadvara is a standpoint of investigation universally applicable to all sorts of problems in all fields of knowledge, such as dravya and kşetra, etc., as employed with restriction by the late canonical authors and post-canonical authors. In the field of jiva, the task of the Jaina theoreticians was therefore to classify jivas, to enumerate their characteristics, to analyze and classify these characteristics, and to apply them to this and that class of beings. The problem of anuyogadvāra is thus how to analyze and classify beings and their characteristics.
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Once these basic points are mastered, the application of anuyoga items to this and that class of beings becomes a mechanical operation, even if it is a complicated case as makes frequent appearance in the final canonical stage. In a simpler case, H, for instance, it is asked if they are possessed of jnana, and if they are, which types of jnana they possess. In a complicated case, H possessed of this and that types of jnana, it is asked which kinds of le'sya and drsti they possess. In other words, the beings in a particular class qualified by a certain anuyoga item are examined in terms of other anuyoga items. And usually a group' of several anuyoga items are examined at a time, from which the later list of 14 märganasthanas is developed.
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The classification of beings and the enumeration of their characteristics are indeed commonly practised by the old philosophical systems in India. However, no other systems of thought but the Jainas developed this pattern of practice into a unique method to tackle a theoretical problem. Since this anuyogadvara was the major method of approach, the canonical authors rarely attempted to define a concept. Instead, they offered a classified list of its characteristics in terms of anuyoga items or a list of its synonyms. The precise definition of a concept can never be obtained by these methods as such. Umasvati is the first author who introduced the practice of defining a concept into the Jaina school.
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