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Panchastikayasara
65
must have in order to be real, that entitles it to have the negauve predicate. Instead of leading to a confusion, this element of differentiation is the only basis for self-assertion of a thing. Asti and násti, assertion or exclusion, are inalienably present in the same thing. Wherever there is asti there is násti and wherever there is nâsti there is asti also.
Now this association of the two, asti and násti in the same thing, appears quite unwarranted. For on the one hand when we perceive a jar we see mere asti without násti, and on the other hand in the case of certain impossible and unreal concepts such as asse's horns, sky-flower there is mere nâsti without asti.
This is not quite correct. In the case of any perceived object, nâsti does not mean that the thing should not exist as such and yet be perceived. That would be meaningless. Nâsti means nothing more than that element of repulsion and differentiation which isolates a thing from its background and gives it a determinate and positive nature. In this sense, násti is inseparable from asti and it is the sense in which it is used. As to the other case of impossible and unreal concepts, where is the positive foundation ? If sky-flower is quite real, nay if it has a slight positive basis, it will cease to mean an unreal and an impossible thing. Its nature seems to be pure negation and nothing less than that. This cannot be, answers our logician. How can there be any negation without any significance ? A significant negation must have some positive basis; otherwise it will be mere nonsense. The elements constituting the concept are by themselves real and are justified by the canons of experience. We have seen horns in a cow; we have seen an ass or a horse. These are existing and real. But the fanciful combination of an ass with horns or a flower with sky is unreal. But for the experience of horns on the head of a cow or flower in a tree there can be no talk of an ass with horns or a flower in the sky. Without this positive basis of experience there will be no elements to make up even a fanciful complex. Thus even the fanciful ideas of unicorn and centaur must have some foundation in our experience. Again in the proposition "Syâdasti jiva," the terms asti and jîva (life) must mean identically the same thing or different things. If the meanings are of the same nature, then one cannot be predicated of the other as a pot cannot be the predicate of a jar, both being co-ordinate. Further asti or existence is predicable of everything real. If asti is identical with jîva, then jîva also must be predicated of everything. But if jiva is different from asti then there is no chance of predicating asti of jíva for they are entirely different from each other. Further jîva being different from asti and asti being the predicate of everything, jîva cannot be related to anything real, i. e. jíva would become unreal. You cannot maintain that jîva though different from asti can be said to have the predicate by a process of combination with it; for combination is impossible in the case of repelling elements.
The horns of this dilemma are blunted by syâdváda. These results need not frighten the logician to whom asti and jîva are identical from the
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