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124 First Steps to Jainism
All objects of the world are multiform (anekanta) and endued with infinite qualities and relations (anantadharmaka). This is relative pluralism. The reality can be considered from different points of views or nayas. The nayas are the standpoints....All judgements are relative and probable. No judgements are absolute. This is syadvāda. These are seven ways of predication. This is called saptabhanginaya.""
It is not strange that Jainas believe that "the different systems of philosophy are only partial views of reality. Jainism is the complete view of reality". (J. Sinha, HIP, vol., II, p. 180.)
Some General Observations
6.1. I have given actual quotations from books on Jaina philosophy to convey the thoughts in their original form (of course, in English translation) without the bias of any subjective interpretations. I should now like to make some brief observations of my own on the connexion between Indian-Jaina views and the foundations of statistical theory. I have already pointed out that the fourth category of syadvada, namely, avaktavya or the "indeterminate" is a synthesis of three earlier categories (1) assertion ("it is"), (2) negation ("it is not"), and (3) assertion and negation in succession. The fourth category of syadvāda, therefore, seems to me to be in essence the qualitative (but not quantitative) aspect of the modern concept of probability. Used in a purely qualitative sense, the fourth category of predication in Jaina logic corresponds precisely to the meaning of probability which covers the possibility of (a) something existing, (b) something not-existing, and (c) sometimes existing and sometimes not-existing. The difference between Jaina "avaktavya" and "probability" lies in the fact that the latter (that is, the concept of probability) has definite quantitative implications, namely, the recognition of numerical frequencies of occurrence of (1) "it is", or of (2) "it is not"; and hence in the recognition of relative numerical frequencies of the first two categories (of "it is" and "it is not") in a synthetic form It is the explicit recognition of (and emphasis on) the concept of numerical frequency ratios which distinguishes modern statistical theory from the Jaina theory of syadvāda. At the same time it is of interest to note that 1500 or 2500 years ago syadvada have given the logical back
seems
to
1. J. Sinha, HIP, vol. II, p. 180.
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