Indian Culture and Jainism

Author(s): Kamalchand Sogani
Publisher: Jain Vidya Samsthan

Page 22

and many as yet unknown. This is known as the doctrine of Anekāntavada. Syādvāda is the method of communicating the manifold characteristics of a thing to the other. Thus Syādvāda is the expression of Anekāntavāda in language. If Anekāntavāda is the mode of cognition, Syadvāda is the mode of expression.
The significant point to be comprehended in regard to Anekāntavāda is that every characteristic of a multiphased thing is maintaining its identity through the existence of its opposite as its aspect“. In fact, a thing can not be the same thing without the negation of other things in it. For example, a colour can not remain a colour without the negation of other characteristics like taste, smell etc. in it. Thus non-exister as much an essential aspect of the real as existence is. Negative propositions can not be asserted without accepting non-existence a element in the constitution of the real. Similarly, the characteristics of one and many, permanence and change, generality and particularity are reconciled in a thing without any incongruity. Thus when the Jinist is faced with the problem of expressing the complex content of knowledge in language in a way which can communicate to the other the knowledge as such, he had to devise the method of Syādvāda.
The word 'Syat' when added to a proposition is indicative of the presence of multiple characteristics in a thing in addition to the characteristic referred to in the proposition under consideration. In the propostion 'Syāt Ghata is colourful', the word 'Syāt' implies that the subject Ghata is a manifold of attributes, of which the attribute of being colourful referred to in the posposition is there in the Ghata as a matter of fact. This should not be understood, as it is generally done, to mean that the existence of colour in the Ghata is doubtful. In other words, certainty of colour along with the manifoldness of characteristics is indicated by the word 'Syāt.' Thus Syādvāda is the custodian of clarity, certainty and unambiguity in the field of philosophy. It is by no means the doctrine of doubt and uncertainty Saptabhangīvāda (Doctrine of seven-fold propositions)^2
Although an existent is possessed of infinite attributes, yet the knowing of it is not a simple affair. The question is : what is it to know a thing ? and how many propositions are requisite to express the content of knowledge ? The conviction of the Jaina is that the seven distinct
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