Book Title: Facets of Jain Philosophy Religion and Culture
Author(s): Shreechand Rampuriya, Ashwini Kumar, T M Dak, Anil Dutt Mishra
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
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Non-Absolutism (Anekāntavāda) 209
not real facts, it cannot be denied that a thing may be conceived as existent or non-existent without reference to their ontological context. Though not ontologically real, absolute existence or non-existence is conceivable, and doubt as a psychical fact has reference to this conception. So, the charge of lack of logical necessity for the sevenfold proposition is not founded ipon a fact. The opposition is a logical relation and it is not necessary that the opposite must be of the same ontological status. The very fact, that absolute existence is opposed to even limited non-existence, and absolute non-existence is not compatible even with limited existence, shows that the relation is true, though as a matter of fact, absolute existence and absolute non-existence are not ontologically real.
The Vedäntist, who holds absolute existence to be the only reality, cannot believe in the reality of non-existence, absolute or qualified. Similarly the Sunyavādin who does not believe in any existence, absolute or limited, cannot but regard absolute non-existence as standing in opposition to existence. The opposition between existence and non-existence has, thus, a logical or psychological value and does not involve the reality of the terms in opposition. It is enough if the other opposite is conceivable. In point of fact, opposition may hold between two ontological facts or between an ontological fact and an unreal fiction, provided it is psychologically conceivable. The first two propositions in the sevenfold chain of predication are, thus, logically valid and psychologically necessary inasmuch as they serve to exclude absolute existence or absolute non-existence from their respective loci. The insertion of the qualifying phrase "syāt.' which emphasises the relative truth of the predication, is dictated by a twofold necessity of, firstly, furnishing a necessary proviso and, secondly, a corrective against the absolutist ways of thought and evaluation of reality.
In the evaluation of the necessity and justice to the assertions in the chain of sevenfold predication, which the Jaina thinks to be the universally valid form, whatever be the predicates, we shall have to take into considertaion two facts, one logical and another ontological. The logical criterion is satisfid by considering whether the assertion is in response to a genuine desire for knowledge of a fact and the ontological criterion is the consideration whether the assertion is true of the fact. The word fact is to be understood in the present context as standing for anything possessed of a characteristic. In the first proposition the pen exists,' existence is predicated of the pen. The
