Lessons of Ahimsa and Anekanta for Contemporary Life

Author(s): Tara Sethia
Publisher: California State Polytechnic University Pomona

Page 76

John Koller, “Why Anekāntavāda is Important?”
predication is called syādvāda. Its epistemological use transforms an unqualified categorical statement not into a conditional statement, but into a qualified categorical statement. Thus, “syat" encapsulates the appropriate conditions that qualify a given statement, enabling the categorical statement thus qualified to have a truth value determined in accord with its correspondence with what is actually the case.
Since becoming is the negation, the “is-not” of being, and since being is the negation, the “is-not” of becoming, Jain logic insisted on the middle ground between the extremes of “is” and “is not" in order to predicate both being and becoming of the same existent. Maintaining this middle ground led to the Jain development of syadvada, a theory of predication that recognizes not only the predicates "is,” and “is not,” but also the predicate "inexpressible," a predicate that combines “is” and “is not."
Combining the theory of standpoints or nayas with the above three predicates leads to the famous seven-fold template for expressing important claims. These seven forms of predication as qualified by the expression "syāt are also referred to as the saptabhangi, explicitly identifying syadvada with the seven-fold formula of qualified predication. Although Umāsvāti and other early thinkers do not refer to this point, the later Jain philosophers agreed that all important philosophical statements should be expressed in this seven-fold way in order to remove the danger of dogmatism (ekāntavāda) in philosophy.
Of the seven-fold predication, we see that the four basic forms of predication are those of affirmation, denial, joint but successive affirmation and denial, and joint and simultaneous affirmation and denial. The third form of predication allows statements about things that change, for before something arises it does not exist, but after it has arisen it does exist, and after it has decayed it will again not exist. But this third form is not really a unique form of predication, for it merely first predicates “is," and then, later, predicates “is not,” thus simply successively affirming and denying the same predicate. The fourth form of predication is called "inexpressible," because there is no way that language can
For Private & P69 nal Use Only