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CHAPTER XI
That is, no modal assertion, or proposition,-simple or complex; affirmative, negative or both,-can, at once, express anything other than an aspect (prakara) of the truth of a thing. The full truth, or rather the synthesis of truths, can result only from a well-ordered scheme of propositions (vacanavinyāsa). Each proposition is, therefore, relative to, or alternative with, the other propositions which, in their totality, present the full of the thing with respect to the particular attribute predicated of it. The Jaina maintains that saptabhangi offers such a well-ordered scheme in which the modes (bhangas) are exclusive of one another, but are at the same time, in their totality, exhaustive of the many-sided truth of the indeterminate real under discussion.
337
It has just been noted that the term 'syadvāda' means conditional or relativistic dialectic and is synonymous with 'saptabhangi'. We may examine, somewhat more closely, the meaning of this term owing to its well-merited importance in the system : The name 'syadvada' is due to the prefix 'syat' which is an invariable accompaniment of every predication. This particle 'syat' which is treated by most of the Jaina writers as an indeclinable' (avyaya) although, generally, modern writers-some of them perhaps unknowingly-consider it in its obvious sense of being a form derived from the Sanskrit root 'as' (to be) in the potential mood, third form, singular.' Another term equi
Jain Education International
1. See infra, p. 338, f.n. 3. See also Nyāyakusumāñjali by Muni Nyayavijaya, ed. H. R. Kapadia, Bombay, 1922, p. 177. For the other several meanings' of 'syat' as an indeclinable, see AJP, Vol. II, Intro. p. CXV, f.n. 2.
2. OIP, p. 163.
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