Facets of Jain Philosophy Religion and Culture

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

Page 45

28 Anekāntavāda and Syädvāda
Fifthly, the most important feature of Jaina logic is its insistence on the impossibility of absolutely certain predication and its emphasis on non-absolutist and relativist predication. In syadvada the qualification ‘syāt' that is, 'may be or perhaps' must be attached to every predication without any exception. All predication, according to syādvăda, thus, has a margin of uncertainty which is somewhat similar to the concept of 'uncertain inference in modern statistical theory. The Jaina view, however, is essentially qualitative in this matter (while the great characteristic of modern statistical theory is its insistence on the possibility and significance of determining the margin of uncertainty in a meaningful way). The rejection of absolutely certain predication naturally leads Jaina philosophy continually to emphasize the inadequacy of 'pure' or 'formal' logic, and hence to stress the need of making inferences on the basis of data supplied by experience.
I should also like to point out that the Jaina view of causality as a relation of determination based on the observation of 'concomitance in agreement and in difference' has dual reference to an internal condition 'in the developed state of our mind' which would seem to correspond to the state of organized knowledge in any given context and also to an external condition based on 'the repeated observation of the sequence of the two events' which is suggestive of a statistical approach.
Finally, I should draw attention to the realist and pluralist views of Jaina philosophy and the continuing emphasis on the multiform and infinitely diversified aspects of reality which amounts to the acceptance of an 'open' view of the universe with scope for unending change and discovery. For reasons explained above, it seems to me that the ancient Indian Jaina philosophy has certain interesting resemblances to the probabilistic and statistical view of reality in modern times.' *
Dialogue
Question 1. How can syāt mean “in some respect'? Is it not a verbal form in the potential mood?
Answer. Just as the expression 'asti' in the sentence 'the world is inhabited by the heroes' (astivīrā vasundharā), is an indeclinable (nipūta), exactly so in the expression ‘syādvāda' the word 'syāt' is an
*
P.C. Mahalanobi's article **The Foundations of Statistics'', published in Switzerland in Dialectica, Part VIII, No. 2, June 15, 1954.