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through a sevenfold relativist dialectic method. It is treated as complementary to the Syādvāda doctrine. Akalanka thinks of it as a way which considers the modes of a thing in, a positive ( vidhimukhena ) and negative (misedhamukhena ) manner without incompatibility in a certain context. The sevenfold predications are as follows:
(i) syadasti oi relatively it is, (ii) syanna sti or relatively it is not. (iii) syūdasti nästi or relatively it is and is not. (iv) syadavaktavya or relatively it is inexpressible. (v) syādastyavaktavya or relatively it is and is inexpressible. (vi) syārnastyavaktavya or relatively it is not and is
inexpressible. (vii) syädastinästyavaktavya or it is, is not, and is inexpr
essible. Here the radical modes of predication are only three in number-syādasti, spīyānnasti, and syadavaktavya which construct other predications by combining themselves. The first two modes represent the affirmative or being ( astitva ), and the negative or non-being (nastitiva ) characters of an entity. The third is a combination of both being and nonbeing. The fourth is inexpressible in its predicate. The remaining three modes are the combined forms of the first, second, and the third. The first two and the fourth predications are consequently the assertions of simple judgements, and the remaining four of complex judgements. According to the mathematical formula, the three fundamental predications make seven modes and not more than that.
The first mode represents the existence of the jar (ghata ) and the non-existence of cloth pata ) in the jar. The second predication shows the negative aspect of jar that it does not exist as cloth or anything else. There is no contradication here, since the predication asserts the relative and determinate abstraction. The third mode offers a successive presentation ( kramar para ) of negative and positive aspects of an entity, while the fourth one offers a simultaneous presenta
