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RECONCILIATION,
965
The third kind of predication is concerned with things of which existence and non-existence are predicable at one and the same time. A striking instance of this kind of predication is furnished by certain delicate tints which resemble more than one recognised colour, but which one in particular it is impossible to say. We regard them as indescribable because we are compelled to affirm as well as to deny their existence with reference to particular colours which they seem to be and at the same time not. Thus, whenever existence and non-existence are to be thought of in connection with a thing at one and the same time, that is to say from the same point of view, we have to describe it as indescribable.
In addition to these simple forms of judgment, there are four complex predications which arise from the different combinations of the simple ones. Taken together, the three simple and the four complex forms of judgment constitute what is technically known to the Jaina philosophers as the Saptaóhangi (sapta=seven, and bhangi= branched), that is the seven-fold method. By affixing the word syât, with suitable grammatical variations, which Jainism insists on placing before every statement of conclusion for exact thinking, the form of the seven kinds of judgment may be easily seen to be:
1. Syadasti (affirmation of existence from some par. ticular point of view;
2. Syannâsti (denial of existence from a particular standpoint);
3. Syidasti naisti (affirmation of existence from one point and of non-existence from another);
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