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JAINA ONTOLOGY
important thing is that in Višeşāvasyakabhāsya there has been a neat cry. stallisation of what might be called the chief account of seven nayas. As a matter of fact this chief account of seven nayas the account of dravyāstikaparyāyāstika and the account of vyavahāra-niscaya are Jinabhadra's real contribution to the doctrine of nayas. Let us consider these three one by one.
(i) On Jinabhadra's showing naigama, sangraha and vyavahara differ from each other on account of their different attitudes as to the question of the ontological status of generality and particularity. Thus according to naigama generality and particularity differ from each other as also from the thing they characterise, according to sangraha generality is real but particularity false, according to vyavahāra particularity is real but generality false. [On an alternative understanding of vyavahāra it becomes identical with vyavahara of the couple vyavahāra-niscaya but let us ignore that ]. In the case of nai gama we are even told that Kanada's philosophy is an instance of it but Jinabhadra does not seem to have in mind any particular philosophy as an instance of sangraha or vyavahāra. As a matter of fact, Jinabhadra's account of naigama is virtually a Vaišeșika account of samanya and visesa but it is difficult to think of a philosophical school which would endorse his account of sangraha or yyavahāra. For instance, the advocate of sangraha maintains that tree (i, e. tree in general) is real but mango (i.e, mango-tree ) is false while the advocate of vyavahara maintains the opposite position; but no philosopher ever maintained either of these positions. As for rjusūtranaya it, according to Jinabhadra, admits the sole reality of what is immediately present and what is one's own. Now so far as it concerned the admission of the sole reality of what is immediately present this certainly looks like a Buddhist position even if Jinabhadra makes no assertion to that effect. Lastly, take the three sabdanayas, viz. sabda, samabhirūdha, evambhūta. It is somewhat difficult to see what distinguishes sabda from rjusūtra. Jinabhadra offers three alternatives in this connection, viz.
(a) Rjusūtra accepts all the four nikşepas but sabda accepts bhäva-niksepa;
(hence it was said that the subject-matter of sabda-naya is the
actual alone'). (b) Both rjusūtra and sabda admit the sole reality of what is immedia
tely present but the latter views it as described in terms of one of the constituent propositions of the Saptabhangi doctrine.
(c) Rjusūtra maintains that a word with a different gender, tense, etc.
is the same word but sabda maintains that it is a different word.
Here is what distinguishes samabhirūdha from sabda : according to the latter a thing described by a word is the same as that described by one of its synonyms, accordingly to the former a thing described by a word is
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