Jinamanjari 1998 09 No 18

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

Page 16

Jinamañjari, Volume 18, No.2, October 1998
A Study Of Syādvāda Dr. Atsusi Uno, Professor Emeritus, Hiroshima University, Japan
The theory of syādvāda is generally understood as synonymous with anekāntavāda meaning non-absolutism, or rather, positive relativity. Syādvāda is a fundamental principle underlying the Jaina philosophy and sometimes denotes nothing but the whole scope of Jaina philosophy. Though its original idea might be traced back to Mahāvīra and indeed there occur very often in the Jaina Āgama texts, polemical expressions qualified with the term siya>, yet these expressions are not made up of seven formulae (sapta-bhanga) as are elucidated in later Jaina works. It is very likely that a set of seven formulae called saptabhangi is of later invention, and its formal and substantive systematisation has been brought about in gradual course of time.
However, the great concern here centres about what position the svādvāda does occupy in the field of Jaina logic, that has been traditionally understood to consist of pramāna and naya. On this point as well as on the definition of syādvāda, there is considerable divergence of opinion, and no such a uniform interpretation is available as is admitted unanimously by all the Jaina works. Shortly speaking, the notion of syādvāda comprises various significant problems in that it is intelligible only on the basis of multiformity. It is probably by Vādidcva Sūri in the eleventh century that spūdvāda was given a certain distinct position as a subject matter of Jaina pistemology and logic. There remains much scope to be scrutinised whether Vādideva's interpretation was accepted almost intact by his successors. Though it is an undeniable fact that nonJaina polemical works, almost without exception, give an intentional misinterpretation to the Jaina doctrine, there are found very often some misleading elucidation about the syādvāda in question even among modern Indologists. Such being the case, this article is intended for giving an outlined account of the theory of syādvāda, paying regard to its historical development.
Therefore, prior to taking up the question at issue, it might be advisable to give a brief account of various uses of syādvāda in chronological order of important Jaina logicians.
Mabāvīra (599-527 B.C.E.) mentions in Jaina Āgama texts two kinds of knowledge or its means viz., pramāna and naya, but not a single word
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