Bhagavana Mahavira and his Relevance in Modern Times

Author(s): Narendra Bhanavat, Prem Suman Jain, V P Bhatt
Publisher: Akhil Bharat Varshiya Sadhumargi Jain Sangh

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Jaina Dielectic and Modern Thought
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point of view is absolute and unerring. They present only partial truths.
III. Syādvāda is the logical expression of the nayavāda. This has been possible by means of sevenfold predication. It is called "saptabhangi' because of its sevenfold predication. It is the formulation of the doctrine of the possibility of apparent contradictions in a real whole. In the syādvāda all the aspects of truth are woven together into the synthesis of the conditioned dialectic. It is that conditional method in which the modes, or predications (bhangah) affirm (vidhi) negate (nişcdha) both affirm and negate severally and jointly in seven different ways a certain attribute (bhāva) of a thing (vastu) without incompatibility (avirodhena) in an certain context (Presuavasat).
Syādvāda shows that there are seven ways of describing a thing and its attributes. It attempts to reconcile the contradictions involved in the predications of the thing.
(i) Syad Asti asserts the existence of the thing from the point of view of the substance (dravya), attribute (bhava), place (kşetra) and time (kāla), that from the context of these relations existence and other attributes are predicated.
(ii) Syād Nästi involves the negation of its opposite; and such a negation is a logical necessity. One is a necessary concomitant of the other. The two predications-affirmation and denial of the opposite are meant to rebut the possibility of unqualified and absolute existence and non-existence. It cannot be denied that it is possible to conceive the existence and non-existence of a thing though not ontologically real. The predications are, therefore, logically necessary to rebut such a conception of absolute existence and absolute nonexistence.?
(iii) Syād Asti Nāsti is a synthesis of affirmation and negation in a different context. It is not a mere summation of the first two predicates but an organic synthesis.
(iv) Syad Avaktavyam is a new predication. It is possible that the real nature of the thing is beyond predication, or expression in the form of words. In metaphysical speculations, the ‘Unknowable' of Herbet Spencer may be likened to predication of this type. "The given indefinite'—the unspeakable' or avaktavya, as it has been called, as distinct from the definite existence, presents something