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 (Anekantavāda) 211
truth, who has his doubts and difficulties about everything.
The Jaina asserts that unguarded predications have been a source of confusion and misconception in the history of philosophical speculations, and in the interests of precision of thought and clarity of our conception it is imperative that the predicates should be so asserted that the chances of misconception are eliminated as far as possible. It is for this reason that he adds the corrective proviso syāt to every assertion, which serves as a warning-post. But it is certain that whatever attribute may be predicated, it must not be understood to exclude the other attributes. Every predicate involves the concomitance of its opposite, and we shall see that the compresence of the two gives rise to a different attribute. Each predicate in the sevenfold proposition is distinct and different from the rest and so none of the propositions is superfluous. That the first predicate is different from the second is obvious. 'Existence' and 'non-existence' are not the same attribute. The combination of the two, successive or synchronous, gives rise to a distinct attribute and so also the combination of the these derivative attributes with the original attributes of the first two modes is the occasion for the emerge novel attributes. But however much we may vary the combination, the number of attributes and consequently the number of propositions will neither be more nor less than seven. It is to be remembered that the seven attributes stated as seven predicates in the sev propositions are numerically different from one anoth secondly, that whatever ways of permutation and combination may be resorted to, the number of the attributes and of the consequential modes will remain constant. We now propose to substantiate the thesis stated here in dogmatic form by arguments.
Assuming for the present that the seven propositions state seven numerically different attributes, it may be questioned why the combination of the first and the third, and of the second and the third, modes should not give rise to different attributes in their turn. The successive occurrence of the first two attributes, positive and negative, is believed to evolve that third attribute, and it is quite conceivable that the same law of synthesis should operate in the combination of the first and second attributes respectively with the third, which is believed to be distinct and different from the first and second. If this possibility is conceded, we should have two other additional attributes and, consequently, two other additional modes and propositions. In answer to this question the Jaina avers, that the
