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JĀTI AND NIGRAHASTHANA
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so that it is well possible that the effort made when a word is heard does not produce this word but only reveals it; he has to be told that nothing possibly can act as a coverage to conceal a word. [Here the rival Mimāṁsā contention is disposed of rightly.?
To this account of 24 types of jāti is appended an elaboration of what might be called the theory of six-rounds-of-discussion, a theory Jayanta elucidates with the help of the above account of the last jāti-type. Thus in the first round of discussion the original debater here argues that a word is non-eternal because it is produced through an effort; in the second round the opponent retorts that since an effort is required not only to produce something but also to reveal a pre-existing though concealed thing the argument is inconclusive. Now if in the third round the original debater shows how his argument is conclusive the matter ends, but suppose he pleads : “Following your 'logic I can say that since some refutation is conclusive some not your refutation is inconclusive."; then in the fourth round the opponent says: “What you say about my refutation is true of your refutation as well, so that the latter too is inconclusive”; in the fifth round the original debater says : “But that way too you concede that your refutation is inconclusive"; in the sixth round the opponent says: “The same way you too concede that your refutation is inconclusive." Really, not only a contingency like 'six-rounds-of-discussion' but an occasion for any of the twenty four types of jāti can arise only in a public debate conducted in a private gathering and not in one conducted through written texts. And since in classical times all worthwhile public debate was conducted through written texts the doctrine of jāti then lost all practical significance as did the doctrine of nigrahasthāna - discussed next - which too had mostly to do with public debate conducted in a private gathering.
(2) Nigrahasthāna (Point-of-defeat) The sixteenth and the last padārtha is nigrahasthāna or pointof-defeat. The aphorist defines it as 'saying what is not worthwhile and not saying what is worthwhile. His point is that if in the course of a debate a debater says something that is not worthwhile or fails to say something that is worthwhile and if the rival points that out then one is to be declared defeated. The point is understandable but is not formulated in the language of logic, it being rather of the
