Facets of Jain Philosophy Religion and Culture

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

Page 229

212 Anekāntavāda and Syādvāda
assertion of the first and third attributes, either successive or synchronous, does not evolve a novel attribute is obvious from the consideration that the combination of the first and third attributes involves false tautology. The first proposition states existence as the predicate and the third asserts a combination of existence and non-existence as two distinct individuals. The combination would imply the addition of another 'existence'. But neither experience nor reflection reveals the reality of two existences in the subject. The combination may result in such a proposition as 'The pen exists and exists and does not exist'. But the assertion of existence twice is useless, as the pen does not appear to have more than one existence. It may be contended that the existence of the pen, as qualified by the pen-character, and the existence of the pen, as qualified by the character of the stuff of which it is made, are different and so the assertion of the two existences is neither illegitimate nor unnecessary. But the contention is hollow. Granted that the existence of the pen quâ pen and its existence qua 'wood' are different, the latter existence as contrasted with its non-existence qua earthy substance would necessitate another sevenfold proposition. The upshot is that the predication of double existence in the same reference is logically impossible as it is ontologically false. It is maintained that the sevenfold predication as generated by a psychological and a logical necessity, which are based upon an ontological situation, and further that the predicates, in their different combinations, are to be understood in reference to the same context and not different contexts. The apparently 'identical pen' in reference to different material, as e.g., the pen made of the wood and the pen made of steel, is only identical in one reference, but as concrete existents they are not absolutely the same. In the sevenfold predication, the subject and the predicate are to be understood as standing for the same ontological facts, subject to the same universe of discourse. The subject “pen' in all the seven propositions is the same pen, of the same material, and not of different material. The combination of the first and third propositions is, thus, not logically factual. The combination of the second and third modes is equally a logical impossibility. The nonexistence of the pen as other than pen is one identical attribute and the addition of another non-existence is logically false and ontologically unreal. It follows that the emergence of two other additional modes as the result of the synthesis of the first and second modes with the third alternately is not possible, logically and ontologically, and,