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CHAPTER X
NAYAVĀDA
(The Theory of Standpoints)
Anekāntavāda as a theory of reality, according to which reality is infinitely manifold, or relativistic in its determinations, has been observed to be inherent in the co-ordinate conception of identity-in-difference. It has also been pointed out, at the beginning of our treatment of anekantavāda that the nayavada, or the method of standpoints, and syādvāda, or the method of dialectical predications, are the two main wings of anekāntavāda. A brief attempt may be made, in this part, to bring out how the two theories, viz., nayavāda and syādvada, bring out and sustain the relativistic character of reality.
Logically, nayavāda and syādvāda are two complementary processes forming a natural and inevitable development of the relativistic presupposition of the Jaina metaphysics. They form a scheme which is pre-eminently one of correlative methods' rather than of theories of reality although they both presuppose and explain the primordial notion that all reality is relativistic. Nayavada is principally an analytical
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1. While dealing, principally, with nayavada Rao characterises 'Jainism' as follows: "It is essentially a method and an attitude." The Half-Yearly Journal of the Mysore University, New Series, Section A-Art, March 1942, p. 79.
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