Aptamimansa

Author(s): Vijay K Jain
Publisher: Vikalp Printers

Page 57

Verse 14
When a single entity is designated by the two attributes, existence and non-existence, applied simultaneously as primary, from the impossibility of such a word, the entity is indescribable. The pair of qualities, existence and nonexistence, cannot be stated together, as one thing, by the term ‘existent' because that is incompetent for the expression of non-existence. Similarly, the term ‘non-existent' cannot be used because that is incompetent for the expression of existence. Nor can a single conventional term express that since it can cause presentation of things only in succession. From lack of all forms of expression the entity is indescribable, but it stands out-overpowered by simultaneous existence and non-existence, both applied as primary. It is not in every way indescribable because of the consequence that it would then be undenotable even by the word ‘indescribable'. It only refers to the impossibility of finding an idea which could include both, the thesis and the antithesis, at the same time.
The remaining three are easily understood.
That the complex nature of a real object or dravya is amenable to description by the seven and only seven propositions is made clear by Ācārya Kundakunda in Pańcāstikāya-Sāra:
सिय अत्थि णत्थि उहयं अव्वत्तव्वं पुणो य तत्तिदयं । दव्वं खु सत्तभंगं आदेसवसेण संभवदि ॥१४॥ According as dravya is viewed from different aspects of reasoning it may be described by the following propositions: 1) in a way it is; 2) in a way it is not; 3) in a way it is both (is and is not); 4) in a way it is indescribable; 5) in a way it is and is indescribable; 6) in a way it is not and is indescribable; and 7) in a way it is and is not and is indescribable.
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