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The Dialectic of Sevenfold Predication
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mutually opposed, in respect of the same subject cannot but produce a doubt in the mind of the person to whom it is addressed. But the allegation is not well-founded upon truth. The conditions of doubt are not present in sevenfold predication. The conditions of doubt are three, viz., the cognition of attributes common to the alternatives, the non-cognition of distinctive attributes, and the recollection of the distinctive attributes. An analysis of the instance under consideration will prove the truth of the assertion. A man sees at dusk a tall object ahead and owing to insufficiency of light cannot observe the specific attributes of the tree, e.g., nests of birds upon it, the hollow in the trunk and the like, or of a human being, such as movement of hands and feet, the head-dress and so on. The object may be a man or a branchless tree, and whichever it is, it must have the attributes in question. But the attributes escape observation, though the man recalls them. He knows what is a man and what is a tree. But owing to the lack of perception of the specific determinations of either, he is in a fix and his mind oscillates between them. In the case of sevenfold predication, on the contrary, existence and non-existence are each defined by their specific determinations, internal and external, and the cognition of these determinations makes doubt impossible. The cognition of common characteristics, when it is accompanied by the absence of the cognition of specific determinations, causes doubt, but not when such determinations are cognised. There can therefore be no room for doubt in sevenfold predication.
It has, however, been contended that though the conditions of doubt as enunciated above may not be present in full, there
certainly other conditions of doubt present in it. In the first place, there is divergence of opinion regarding the truth of the opposite attributes. Secondly, the Jaina must advance reasons in support of each of the opposite attributes and the consideration of such reasons must result in doubt, as one set of reasons will offset the other, and so neither existence nor non-existence can be asserted with certitude. But the second contention is also hollow like the first, since it is inspired by a misconception. It
1.
The matter has been discussed in the beginning of this chapter.
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