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JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
valent to syāt' is 'kathañcit” and no word or phrase in English is adequate to bring out precisely the significance of either word. Some of the suggested English equivalents like 'probably', ‘may be', 'perhaps', 'indefinitely' and so forth are inadequate, if not somewhat misleading. Its main significance lies in its emphasis on the indeterminate or manifold nature of the real which-like all other reals—comes within its purview. Indeterminateness or manifoldness means that the “reals cannot be determined as possessing only such and such attributes and not the rest”. Discussing the spirit of syādvāda a modern critic observes: “It signifies that the universe can be looked at from many points of view, and that each viewpoint yields a different conclusion (anekānta). The nature of reality is expressed completely by none of them for in its concrete richness it admits all predicates. Every proposition is therefore in strictness only conditional. Absolute affirmation and absolute negation are both erroneous”.' It is this conception of reality as extremely indeterminate in nature that is suggested or 'illumined by the term 'syāt'. A phrase which will approximately bring out this indeterministic significance of 'syāt’ would be ‘from a certain point of view', or 'in a certain sense', or some other equivalent form.
Another Sanskrit word which is used to suggest that each of the conclusions signified by the seven modes is exclusive -that is, does not encroach upon the province of the conclu
1. SM, p. 151 (text). 2. OIP, p. 163. 3. Syādityavyayamanekāntadyotakam / SM, p. 151 (text).
