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Anekānta: Both Yes and No
“If they are both, identical and different, we have also two possibilities. If they are different in one form or one way and identical in another way, then also the same cannot be said to have two different natures. However, if they are different in the same way as they are identical with each other, this is also not tenable. For there will be contradiction. How can two things be different in one way, and then be identical in the same way? If they are
identical, how can they be different?” (p. 12-13). This is the opponent's argument. The formulation is vintage Haribhadra. Now the answer of Haribhadra may be briefly given as follows:
"You have said “How can the same thing, such as a pot, be both existent and non-existent?” This is not to be doubted. For it (such dual nature of things) is well-known even to the (unsophisticated) cowherds and village women. For if something is existent in so far as its own substantiality, or its own location, or its own time or its own feature is concerned, it is also non-existent in so far as a different substantiality, a different location, a different time or a different feature is concerned. This is how something becomes both existent and non-existent. Otherwise,
even such entities as a pot would not exist." (p.36). The existence of an entity such as a pot, depends upon its being a particular substance (an earth-substance), upon its being located in a particular space, upon its being in a particular time and also upon its having some particular (say, dark) feature. In respect of a watersubstance, it would be non-existent, and the same with respect to another spatial location, another time (when and where it was nonexistent), and another (say, red) feature. It seems to me that the indexicality or the determinants of existence is being emphasized here.
To make this rather important point clear, let us consider the sentence:
"It is raining". This would be true or false depending upon various considerations or criteria. It would be true if and only if it is raining, but false if it happens to be snowing. This may correspond to the ‘substantiality'
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