Jaina Logic

Author(s): T G Kalghatgi
Publisher: Raja Krisen Jain Charitable Trust New Delhi

Page 99

Jaina Logic
instead, entered the field of mathematics of logic and the calculus of logic. In this over-specialisation, we have lost the wood in the trees. Strange to find in the discussions about Indian Logic in the Encyclopedia of philosophy and many philosophical works in the West, there is hardly any mention of Jaina logic, although there are brief, perhaps, inadequate references to other systems of Indian philosophy, like the Buddhist and the Nyaya'?. Perhaps they have not come across the works of eminent Jaina logicians, like Akalanka. It is necessary that Western Scholars should realise that study of logic would not be complete without reference to the analysis in depth of the concepts of Jaina logic. It is the task of the scholars in India to point out the profoundity of thought and the depth of scholarship in the Jaina concepts of anekanta, nayavada and syadvada. The present development of Western logic is only an aspect of the Jaina theory of Anekanta. The anekanta and nayavada have epistemological overtones. Syadvada is meta-logic.
The synoptic presentation of reality by Syadváda gives a truc picture of reality in all its aspects and that is the essence of the Jaina outlook, which helps to remove the intellectual cobwebs arising out of ekanta. The syadvada of the Jainas affirms that a thing is never destroyed; and that which is not. never comes into being!" In this sense the syadvada presents the possibility of predicaung different characteristics of the object from the points of view of substance which is permanent and the modes which are changing's
The theory and methodology of Syadvada need to be studied in all its implications in the scientific and metaphysical
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157 I have referred here to the article on Logic- Indian Logic in
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Editor in Chief Paul Edward,
McMillan and Free Press, U SS 1967) Vol 4 158. Pancastikayasare. 15, Bhavassanatthi , narihi abhavassa uppödo 159 Anuyog advare :
"Adipamavyomanabhavam, syadvadamudranti bhedivastu I Tanrutyamevaikamanit yamanya ditt syadvanad visatam pralapah II"