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Jaina Philosophy and Religion
Similarly, only at a time or at the times when a person is actually performing some service is he to be called sevaka (Sanskrit for ‘one who serves'). Thus all the suppositions which employ a word standing for some qualifier or one standing for some qualificand, only in case the activity with which this word is related is actually being undertaken, are to be called evambhūta-naya.
As already noted, the samabhirudha-naya maintains that all words-even synonymous words too have their own different meanings. Each word means or conveys a different thing. But samabhirūdha-naya does never object to our applying the term 'yoddhā' (Sanskrit for 'one who fights in war') to a warrior even when he is not actually engaged in the activity of fighting in war (but is living in his house peacefully when there is no war). Contrary to this, evambhūta-naya objects to it. It says that a man can be called yoddhā, only when he is engaged in the activity of fighting in war, and not at any other time. Similarly, a person can be called pūjārī (Sanskrit for 'one who worships'), only when he is engaged in the activity of worship, and not at any other time. All words connote some activity. So when a thing is engaged in the activity connoted by the etymology of a particular word, then and then only that thing is to be denoted by that word. Each and every word is derived from some verbal root, hence it is connected with some activity. If samabhirūdha-naya some time observes a thing engaged in the activity connoted by a particular word, it employs that word to denote that thing always at all times, whether that activity is present there in that thing or not. But evambhūta-naya employs the word to denote the thing when and as long as that activity is actually present in the thing. In the absence of that activity, it regards that word unfit to be employed for denoting that thing. According to this evambhūta-naya all words are action-words, that is, derived from some verbal root.
While samabhirūdha-naya insists upon making distinctions of meanings or things conveyed by words in accordance with the different etymologies of words, evambhūta-naya confines the word to the thing just while it performs the activity which it connotes.
1. In practice, we see that the Government takes the side of its servant as long as he
is on duty, if somebody ill-treats him. But at other times, the Government treats him as it treats any other common citizen. This method of treatment which the Government adopts in regard to its servants is in accordance with the evambhūta standpoint. 'I did not meet the Governor, but I met my friend', 'I am not a king, but a guestin all such modes of expression we have a glimpse of evambhūta-naya.
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