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Approach to Reality
17
characters. The distinction between the conceptual and the verbal has mainly a reference to the fact that points of view have to be expressed in language and predicated in specific forms so as to embody them. The concept is formed from this point of view.
Naya refers to the point of view one takes when one looks at the object. A naya is defined as a particular opinion or a view-point of looking at an object. It expresses a partial truth about an object as known by a knowing subject.i6 The Jainas give the example of the blind men and the elephant. The blind men feel the animal and describe it, each in his own way. Similarly, we look at objects and describe them in our own way from different angles. Other view-points are also recognised; and they need to be recognised with each in the scheme of a fuller and more valid knowledge which is the sphere of Pramāņa.
The Jainas have formulated a methodological scheme consisting of seven ways of looking at reality. There was a problem whether the seven Nayas can be reduced in number. There are three traditions. The first tradition adopts seven Nayas. The second eliminates Naigama Naya and reduces the list to six. In the third tradition we have five, as Samabhirūdha and Evambhūta Naya have been subsumed under Sabda Naya. Umāsvati is largely responsible for the first and the third traditions. In the Digambara version of the Tattvārthasūtra seven ways have been mentioned, but the Svetāmbara version gives five Nayas as mentioned in the third tradition. The different points of view are the Nayas. Various Nayas have been mentioned. As shown above Umāsväti first mentions five Nayas and then adds the subdivisions.!? The Āgamas have
15. Prame yakamalamārtanda of Prabhācandra anir ākstapratisa
vastavasaingrāhi jñāturabhiprāya nayaḥ!". 16. Padmarajiah (Y. J.) Jaina Theory of Reality and Knowledge, pp. 325. 17. Tatvarthă dhigama-sútra, 1, 34, 35.
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