Jain Journal 2000 07

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 22

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JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXV, No. 1 July 2000
3. Syad asti ca nāsti ca, May be, it is and it is not 4. Syad avaktavyah, May be it is incapable of being spoken (indeterminate)
5. Syad asti ca avaktavyaś ca, May be, it is and also indeterminate 6. Syad nāsti ca avaktavyaś ca, May be, it is not and also indeterminate
7. Syad asti nästi ca avaktavyaś ca, May be, it is, it is not, and also indeterminate.
The easiest example is to take a coin. It is tossed. Then we may say, 'May be, it is the Head.' It also implies 'May be, it is not the Tail.' Combining both we may say, 'It is the Head and not the Tail.' When the coin is still spinning, it cannot be said whether it is the Head or the Tail. That state may be called avaktavyah (indeterminate).
Since we know that the coin has only two sides, we may add : 'May be, it is the Head and at the same time it may be indeterminate.' In this case, the indeterminate is only one: the Tail. But if there are several possibilities, then 'indeterminate' would mean any one of them. For example, in the case of a dice, it may turn up 1 or 2 or 3..., or 6. So in this case, it would be: 'May be, it is 1 (or 2, or 3...) and also indeterminate.'
Take the following equation: x33-x2+x-1=0. Here x may be 1 or + √ 1, that is, x may be any one of the three. Hence, if x is 1, it may also be √ 1 or -V 1, that is, indeterminate. This is how we may speak of the fifth, sixth and seventh possibilities mentioned above. When we are dealing with this kind of equation, we cannot say that the probability of any one of them is greater or less than the others all are equally probable.
As there are only seven such probabilities, this system is called saptabhangi-naya, 'seven-fold predication' (naya means standpoint). The most popular instance of the application of this doctrine is known as andha-gaja-nyāya, 'the maxim of the blind men and the elephant'.5 Several blind men wished to have an idea of the shape of an elephant. One felt the tail with his hands and declared, "The elephant is like, a rope." Another blind man felt the leg and said, "No, it is like a post.' Both the statements are partially true, as that of another, who touching the trunk had decided that the elephant was similar to a snake. When we are dealing with an object that consists of several parts, any statement regarding a part is both true (in relation to a particular part) and not true (in relation to other parts). The whole may still remain avaktavyaḥ, indeterminate.
5. See Laukikanyāyāñjaliḥ, A Handful of Popular Maxims, ed. Col. G.A. Jacob, Delhi Nirajana, 1983, p. 3.