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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Syādvāda and Relativity 365
judgements by which the different aspects of a thing can be affirmed and negated, severally and jointly, without self-contradiction. It explains every object or its attributes with reference to Svadravyaksetrakälarūpa (own matter, place, time and form). Let us take a pot (ghata) for example. A ghața exists or is sat (real) with reference to its sva (own) dravyakşetrakālarūpa; but does not exist or is asat (unreal) with reference to para (alien) dravyakşetrakālarūpa. These 'is' and 'is not (Asti and nasti) are relative; and it is from these two main that the remaining five, viz., syādaasti nasti syādavaktavya, syād nāsti avaktavya and syād asti nāsti avaktavya (relatively is and is not; relatively indescribable, relatively exists and unpredicable, relatively is not and indescribable and relatively is, is not and is indescribable) are derived.
"This doctrine," says Dr. Radhakrishnan, "insists on the correlativity of affirmation and negation. All judgements are doubleedged in their character. All things are existent as well as nonexistent (sadasadcitmakam). A thing is what it is and is not, what it is not....A thing which has nothing from which it can be distinguished is unthinkable. The absolute, devoid of distinctions within as well as without is truely unthinkable. For all things which are objects of thought 'are' in one sense and are not in another. 13
The critics point out that it is impossible for the contradictory attributes to co-exist in one and the same thing. Rāmānuja writes, "'Contradictory attributes such non-existence cannot at the same time belong to one thing, any more than light and darkness.” 14 It is time that a thing can not have self-contradictory attributes at the same time and in the same sense but the Jains point out that the reality is complex and possesses innumerable attributes or aspects and so various judgements are true with regard to different view-points. Dr. Bhandarkarals writes, “Being is not simple as Advaitins assert but complex and any statement about it is only part of the truth....what is meant by these seven modes is that a thing should not be considered as existing elsewhere, at all times, in all ways, and in the form of everything. It may exist in one place and not in and at one time and not at another". So it becomes clear that it is not
13. Dr. S. Radhakrishnan : 'Indian Philosophy', Vol. I. pp. 393-4. 14. Ibid., p. 304. 15. Dr. Bhandarkara: 'Report on the Search for Sanskrit Manusripts in Bombay
Presidency During the Year 1883-84', Bombay, 1887, p. 956.
