Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

Author(s): Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

Page 132

The Sophisticated Stage 111
flourishing between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, the following deserve special mention. Tilakācārya, author of Avašyakalaghuvstti; Mallisena Sūri, author of Syādvādamañjarī which is a commentary on Hemacandra's Vitarăga-stuti or Dvātrimśika; Rajaśekhara Sūri, author of Ratnávatārikā-pañjika; Jñāna Candra, author of Ratnā-karāvatārikā-țippana; Gunaratna, the celebrated author of Tarkarahasyadipikā which is a commentary on Haribhadra's Şaļdarsanasamuccaya; Śrutasāgara Gaņi, author of Tattvārthadīpikā; Dharmabhūşana, author of Nyāya-dipikā; Vinayavijaya, author of Nayakarņikā; and Yaśovijaya Gaņi, author of Nyāyapradipa, Tarkabhāṣā, Nyāyarahasya, Nyāyāmstatarangiņi and Nyāyakhandakhādya.'
Jain logic begins with the dictum that every judgement expresses one aspect of reality and is therefore relative and subject to some condition. It is due to the fact that every object has innumerable characters.2 Thus, a thing should be comprehended from different standpoints, and the method of such comprehension is called Naya. In the Bhagavatī-sūtra and Prajñāpanā-sūtra, this Naya, which is also interpreted as partial knowledge about any of the innumerable aspect of an object or judgement based on such partial knowledge, is divided into seven kinds: naigama, samgraha, vyavahāra, rju-sütra, sabda, samabhirūdha, and evambhūta. Umāsvāti, who explains these terms, instead of dividing Naya into seven kinds, first divides it into five kinds, and then subdivides one of the five, viz. śabda, into three kinds. Naigama is the non-analytical method by which an object is regarded as possessing both general and specific properties. Thus we may conceive rose either as a flower possessing the attributes common to all flowers or as a thing possessing attributes which are peculiar to the rose as distinguished from other flowers. Samgraha is the collective method which takes into consideration generic properties only and ignores particular properties. Vyavahāra is quite its opposite which takes into account the particular only ignoring the general. Rju-sūtra is the method which considers only the momentary entity without any reference to time and space. Sabda is the method of
1See Peterson's Fourth and Fifth Rep. A good number of the manuscripts of these texts were collected and edited by S.C. Vidyabhusana and a few of them were published in the Bibliotheca Iodica series, Calcutta. For details see Vidyabhusana HIL, pp. 172-220.
SDSC, 55. 'NVT, 29; NVT-vivrti, 29. TTDS (BI), pp. 32ff.