Facets of Jain Philosophy Religion and Culture

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

Page 185

- 168 Anekantavāda and Syādvāda
raises a serious difficulty. It has been asserted by the great Jaina logician Samantabhadra that if things were absolutely incapable of being expressed, the affirmation of the predicate 'inexpressible' would be illogical.43 This is in direct conflict with the negative interpretation. But Vidyanandi solves the problem by interpreting this assertion of Samantabhadra as follows: "If things, that is, reals as characterized by individual characteristics (like existence and non-existence taken one at a time) as well as the reals as characterized by complex characteristics taken simultaneously (as in the fourth predicate) were all alike (admitted to be) absolutely incapable of being expressed, the affirmation of the predicate 'inexpressible' of any real would be illogical, because the real (as admitted) is characterized by the absence of expressibility, that is, is incapable of being expressed even by the term inexpressible'.” The implication of this interpretation is that though expressibility is absolutely negated of the fourth predicate, it is affirmed of the other predicates which take one characteristic at a time. The absolute negation of expressibility thus also does not violate the general principle of the Jaina philosopher that any significant affirmation is concomitant with negation, and any significant negation is concomitant with affirmation.44 A real is inexpressible in respect of the fourth predicate and expressible in respect of the other individual predicates. Expressibility and negation of expressibility are thus to be understood in different contexts. ‘Admission of expressibility' and 'negation of expressibility' in respect of the same aspect of the real is on a par with the admission of “existence' and 'non-existence in the same respect, which is a case of self-contradiction. 45
The fifth predicate is 'existence and inexpressibility', that is, ‘inexpressibility as qualified by existence (which was the first predicate)'. The jar exists (in its own context) and is inexpressible (syādasti cāvaktavyaśca ghatah). The proposition asserts the compresence of 'existence with the 'inexpressible'. The jar is inexpressible (indefinite) qua a synthetic unity of existence and non-existence, but it is none the less expressible (definite) qua existent, In other words, the 'indefinite as affirming itself is a 'positive definite'. Otherwise, the indefinite would turn out to be an absolute 43. 39e4dcontserrat Tuna quant-AM, 32. 44. Bei Festa Tieter for I
a fez ISTITUTE T AM, 17-18. For elucidation, see JPN p. 152. 45. TVS, p. 141 : ft itu "39eTS I
Tutt" fa geri ETC... ET RITEGRITY-CENCIAT Also see JPN, pp. 123-4, and SBT. pp. 70-1.