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ThInexpressible or the Indefinite
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he cannot make any assertion either by way of affirmation or by way of negation. It is self-evident that falsity is a relative concept which can be ascertained only with the help of truth, as falsity is nothing but a perception of partial truth. Sankara is right when he makes the false the co-associate of the true.1 · To sum up the results, the Jaina admits the partial truth of the conclusions of the grammarians, who believe that language has the capacity to express everything that is real, and of the opposite position of the Buddhist who places all reals beyond the range of linguistic and conceptual thought. The position of the absolute sceptic is rejected without reservation and the Jaina has adduced convincing reasons why such a suicidal and selfcontradictory position cannot be entertained as a serious account of reality. Reals are certainly expressible, and words and concepts are derived from reality and their reference to reals cannot be impugned without contradiction. But he recognizes the qualitative difference between perceptual and non-perceptual cognition, and this qualitative difference is accounted for by the consideration that the full individuality of a real is envisaged in perception alone. But non-perceptual cognitions are also veridical, though they do not give us the unique individuality of the real, but only those attributes which it shares with other individuals of the class. In support of this position he adduces the consideration that the constitution of reals is made of both these kinds of attributes. He also points out that being and non-being are equally real factors of reals, and the compresence of the two elements in the unique individual, though it can be envisaged only in intuition, is logically justifiable by the reductio ad absurdum of all theories which purport to repudiate this truth. The unique individuality of a real is not accessible to conceptual thought and, hence, to language, but it is reached by an analysis of the nature of reality as it is apprehended in perception. If we are to survey the results of our investigation of the nature of reality, which has been attempted in these five chapters, we can assert that we have tried to prove, following the guidance of the Jaina philosophers, that
1. satyánste mithunikrtya ... lokavyavahāraḥ, Adhyasabhāşya, BSU.
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