Facets of Jain Philosophy Religion and Culture

Author(s): Shreechand Rampuriya, Ashwini Kumar, T M Dak, Anil Dutt Mishra
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

Page 121

104 Anekāntavāda and Syādvāda
Upadhyes maintains that the former is "primarily conceptual" and the latter "mainly verbal". Although not quite incorrect, this distinction is apt to be somewhat misunderstood if we are not aware of the background against which it is made. This is because the so-called ‘primarily conceptual' method is also verbal, in asmuch as it not merely requires the aid of words for the expression of its various standpoints but also has as many as three, among its seven, standpoints which are exclusively concerned with the verbal problems, and are therefore designated as sabdanayas. Similarly, in contradistinction to the verbal elements of the conceptual'nayavāda, the 'mainly verbal’ method of syādvāda is so much charged with the epistemological character that we might say that its verbal side is more intrumental than intrinsic in value. The term 'conceptual may, however, be applied to the four druvyanayas, under nayavāda, with relatively greater propriety. But under syādvāda no distinctions, such as the verbal modes of syādvāda and the non-verbal or the epistemological modes of syādvāda, can be made since all modes are both verbal and epistemological. This is so in spite of the fact that much care and exactitude are needed in the verbal formulation and manipulation of the modal judgments.
Leaving aside the epistemological content of the modal judgments for the moment, the description of all the modes of syādvada as verbal also may give rise to a possible objection that such a description should not be applied to the mode which contains the 'inexpressible' (avaktavya) as its predicate. For the 'inexpressible' is, ex hypothesi, a verbal failure insofar as it is incapable of a 'co-presentation' or a simultaneous expression of the positive and the negative traits of a real in a single attempt. Describing a mode as verbal when a signal verbal failure is inscribed on it would, therefore, be, according to the possible objector, paradoxically objectionable. Defferring a discussion of the modal predicate, the 'inexpressible', to the next chapter, we may briefly indicate here the line of argument the Jaina would take in answering the present objection. The Jaina answer to this objection, it may be noted, necessarily entails a reference to the third mode of syādvāda also :
59. He observes: "Syādvāda is a corollary of Nayavāda : the latter is analytical and
primarily conceptual and the former is synthetical and mainly verbal”. PrSKU, Intro. p. LXXXV. Incidentally (see SII, p. 17 and p. 52), it would be more correct to say, with Jacobi, the syādvāda is a 'logical complement than a 'corollary' of nayavāda.