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JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
Hiriyanna, by no means an unsympathetic exponent even of Jainism, observes : “The half-hearted character of the Jaina enquiry is reflected in the seven-fold mode of predication (sapta-bhangi), which stops at giving us the several partial views together, without attempting to overcome the opposition in them by a proper synthesis. It is all right so far as it cautions us against one-sided conclusions but it leaves us in the end....with little more than one-sided solutions. The reason for it, if it is not prejudice against absolutism, is the desire to keep close to common beliefs." In another work of his also the same criticism is made with some more incisive touches on one or two points. One additional point mentioned there, on the authority of Bādarayaņa, Sankara, and other absolutists, is that "If all our knowledge concerning reality is relative, they say (the old Indian critics like Sankara, Rāmānuja etc.), the Jaina view must also be relative. To deny this conclusion would be to admit, at least, one absolute truth; and to admit it would leave the doctrine with no settled view of reality, and thus turn it into a variety of scepticism."
From these observations we may elicit two points of criticism : The first one is that syādvāda is a form of "electicism” because it is "a mere putting together of the several partial truths without "a proper synthesis”. This is expressed even more trenchantly by a follower of Hiriyanna who, after characterising “The Jaina Philosophy of Relativity" as
1. OIP, p. 172 f. 2. EIP, p. 69. 3. Ibid., p. 68.
