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CHAPTER XI
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Before we set forth the modes of syādvāda and their principal features, and, at the end, a few relevant criticisms against the method as a whole, it would be helpful to remember here what has already been stated' with regard to the two groups of factors which, together, determine the nature of a real. The first group of such factors is the positive one referring to the material (dravya) of the make, the spatiotemporal setting (kşetra and kāla) and the state (bhāva), like black or red, or big or small and so forth, of a jar (ghata) which may be cited here as an example. The second group of factors is a negative one referring to the material, and so on, of things like linen (pata) which form the negative counterpart (nişedha-pratiyogi) of the jarness (ghațatva) of the jar. The negative counterpart (pațatva, etc.) is, as has already been noticed, as much constitutive of the full-fledged nature of the jar as the positive one. These groups of factors are briefly described in Sanskrit as svadravyādicatusțaya and
be used in an inclusive sense of anekantavāda owing to the paramount importance attached to saptabhangī with which it (syādvāda) is primarily synonymous. Moreover, none of the authorities adduced by Kapadia decisively supports his thesis. There is at least one great and old authoritative writer, viz., Prabhācandra, who contradicts Kapadia's thesis. (Interpreting Akalanka's phrase 'syadvādekşanasaptakam', Prabhācandra writes: syādastītyādi saptabhangamayo vādah/ See the Comm. on LTP, kā. 51, in NKC, Vol. II, p. 655). But over and above all these considerations the reason why syādvāda is generally and rightly treated as synonymous with saptabhangi is that the particle syāt invariably accompanies every bhanga (or mode) in saptabhangi. It would, therefore, be perfectly natural to describe saptabhangi alternatively as syādvāda or the doctrine of syāt. It is rather strange that this obvious reason has not even suggested itself to Kapadia. Supra, pp. 154-155 etc.
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