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JAINA ONTOLOGY
arthaparyaya while submitting that sangraha is śuddhavyaħjana paryāya, vyavahāra aśuddhavyanjanaparyāya, ṛjusūtra the basic arthaparyāyanaya, samprata etc. the derivative arthaparyayanayas. This will tend to suggest that the traditional doctrine of nayas also took into consideration the aspect of kinship. Now even granting that Siddhasena will say all this which is doubtful inasmuch as the only twofold division of nayas he allows for is that into dravyastika and paryāyāstika the fact remains that the precise import of the traditional doctrine of nayas is pretty obscure. In any case Siddhasena's actual silence about naigama and his virtual silence about the three sabdanayas make it difficult for us to make out as to how he viewed the traditional doctrine taken in its totality. Again, the way Siddhasena speaks in details of dravyāstikanaya and paryāyāstikanaya makes it certain that the only aspect he took into consideration in this connection was the aspect of temporality. He actually says; 'There is no paryaya without dravya; certainly, the triplet origination, permanence, destruction constitutes the defining characteristic of dravya (better, of sat )' (1.12). Now the distinction of dravya and paryaya is certainly very old and deeper consideration of it must have led to the definition of sat as a permanent dravya possessed of ever changing paryayas; this, in turn must have led to Siddhasena's twofold division of nayas into dravyastika and paryāyāstika. But the original doctrine of seven nayas seems to have been too heterogeneous to be amenable to a clear-cut division of this sort. However, even if not literally loyal to the spirit of the traditional doctrine of nayas Siddhasena makes an important contribution to the doctrine of Anekantavāda inasmuch as he concretely applies it to a most fundamental pair of contradictory features, viz. permanence and transience. Thus the idea that a thing, even while undergoing continuous change, somehow retains its identity all the while is explained by him through the illustration of an adult person who, though no more a child, is ashamed of his misdeeds of childhood and who, though not yet an old man, takes measures to ensure happy prospects in his old age. (1.43-46).
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On the question of niksepa Siddhasena says little and something not much important. For he only tells us (1.6) that the first three niksepas, viz. nama, sthapana, dravya belong to dravyastika, while the last, viz. bhava belongs to paryāyāstika, a statement which, unless further amplified, means little. Similarly, on the question of Saptabhangt Siddhasena says little and something quite obscure. For after laying down the seven constituent statements of Saptabhangt ( in one of its two versions) he says (1.41): Thus in arthaparyaya there is the way of speaking with seven alternatives while in vyanjanaparaya there is savikal pa and nirvikalpa'. The meaning of the statement is not at all clear. However, Siddhasena evinces clear awareness of one use to which the saptabhangi doctrine was put by later authors, viz. to demo
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