Anekantavada

Author(s): Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: Atmanand Jain Sabha

Page 78

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The word, Syat, is often translated as perhaps or "may be ". The translation is certainly wrong, as it does not carry the sense in which the word, Syat, is used by the Jaina thinkers. The first predication is not intended to mean that the pitcher may exist' or that perhaps it exists'. No; so far as the Jain philosophers are concerned, they are never in doubt that the pitcher exists. They do hold that existence as a matter of fact must be attributed to the object, pitcher. They mean only that the relationship between the pitcher and existence is not absolute and unconditional. When one says that the pitcher exists, as it certainly does,-it exists under contain conditions. The statement thus means that in some respect', the pitcher is existent and the word, Syat, is intended to refer to those all-important conditions of existence. The word Syat, suggests also that there are other aspects or attributes equally applicable to the object, pitcher but that these, instead of being denied, are either sub-ordinated to existence or left out of consideration, for the time being.
41
The indeclinable, Eva, is sometimes omitted in the statement but its usefulness -nay, its indispensableness,-is not to be forgotten therefore. Eva' imports definiteness and certainty in the
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