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Truth
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This discussion on falsehood would clarify the doubts and confusion regarding verbal falsehood and real falsehood. These ten types are : (i) falsehood spoken in anger, (ii) in conceit, (iii) in crookedness, (iv) in greed, (v) in attachment, (vi) in hatred, (vii) in laughter, (viii) in conjectures or fabrication of events, (ix) in fear, and lastly, (x) in violence.
Another classification is made at another place where false. hood is divided into four types.1 This classification is significant since it reveals that the ethical truth is dependent on metaphysical. These four kinds of falsehoods are (i) Sadbhāva-pratisedha, i. e. rejecting the very presence of an object which is eternally existent, as for example to say that soul (átman) is non-existent; (ii) asadbhāvodbhāvana, i. e. to accept the presence of non-existent objects or false notions, as to say that God is the creator of the universe, or He punishes those who commit sins; (iii) arthāntara means changing the meanings of the terms which they usually connote, e.g. to call a horse a cow; (iv) garha means speaking only verbal truth but not pleasing and salutory to the person to whom it is spoken, as for example calling a blind person by that name.
The last kind of falsehood is obviously against the ethical truth which has its origin in violence. Avoidance of this is truth because it tallies with the principle of 'non-violence'. The third type, i.e. ‘arthāntara' is a falsehood against convention and experience, abstinence from which is truth. The first two kinds, i e. 'sad bhāvapratişedha'and 'asadabhāvodbhāvana', are in the main the metaphysical falsehoods, the opposite of which refer to the metaphysical truth.
These classifications uudoubtedly make the concept of truth clearer, however they are not free from what is called the fallacy of overlapping division. In all these divisions of truth or falsehood, one can clearly behold that one particular kind is somehow included in the other also. If this division is
1. Haribhadra's Comm. on Dasav. 4.4.
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