Logical Structure Of Naya Method Of Jainas

Author(s): Piotr Balcerowicz
Publisher: Piotr Balcerowicz

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PIOTR BALCEROWICZ
examples to be found in JTBh.2 §8, pp. 15-29 of similar sort that instantiate how the viewpoints function.
We may however speak of levels of description in a qualified sense, i.e. as a convenient verbal way of referring to events that is an approximation of relating to referents tokened by a naya-index. I shall henceforth refer to the indexicalisation or parameterisation model by the term 'indexed level of description' in this qualified sense for the sake of convenience.
To recapitulate, what is taken into account by the comprehensive viewpoint (naigama-naya), i.e. in the first indexed level of description, is a complex of meanings and connotations evoked by an utterance, irrespective of either distinctive features of individuals or of constitutive characteristics representative of a given class. In other words, the viewpoint comprises indiscriminately both the particular and the universal: it grasps a given phenomenon in a most general way and takes recourse to a possibly extensive, all-inclusive context, which is referred to by a particular utterance. The truth-value of an utterance is not directly dependent on the context of the utterance. Clearly, what is meant here is a colloquial, unreflected usage of an unspecified reference, which is at the same time non-indexical. Apparently it is because of its nonindexicality that the comprehensive viewpoint is conspicuously absent from STP. Later, the viewpoint was taken to demarcate the limits of meaningful discourse: 'The comprehensive [viewpoint]... has as [its] scope existence and non-existence."40
As the second step, the scope of the comprehensive viewpoint (naigama-naya) is narrowed down by excluding the particular and laying stress on the universal alone. Thus, the collective viewpoint (sangraha-naya), i.e. the second indexed level of description, pertains cumulatively to a whole class of individuals, which constitutes the denotation of a given utterance, and thereby it forms a basis for any taxonomical analysis.
In the third indexed level of description, the point of reference is further limited to such individual things, or elements of a class, that are directly amenable to practical activity. Since we can practically deal only with a particular specimen of the whole class of objects in everyday practice (vyavahāra), not with the whole class, it is the individual thing that is selected for practical purposes. And we directly refer to it by means of a linguistic unit of general denotation that corresponds to the respective class and the truth-value of which is assigned through the empirical viewpoint (vyavahara-naya), viz. from the nominalist perspective. That is why - especially in early analyses (e.g. TBh.) - the commonplace aspect (laukika) and the conventional practice prevalent
THE LOGICAL STRUCTURE OF THE NAYA METHOD
among people (lokôpacara) are said to be emphasised in this case. Eventually, the practical aspect means the feasibility, on the part of an object, to become the object of human activity.
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Successively the direct viewpoint (rju-sutra) views things according to their transitory properties and modes and provisionally neglects their incontrovertible substantial nature and existence as substrata of those properties and modes. In this way, the fourth indexed level of description narrows the point of reference down to the temporal manifestation of an individual, which is concurrent with the instant characterised by the action or by the event of the individual thing exhibiting the transient aspect that is being expressed by the utterance. As a rule this is the present moment, viz. the moment of articulating the speech units.
The fifth indexed level of description, viz. the verbal viewpoint (sabda-naya), or the accurate verbal viewpoint (samprata-sabda-naya) as Umäsväti would like it, inserts still another index of purely verbal reference based on linguistic convention. Here the intentional differentiation between meanings of synonymical expressions, based on different derivation, grammatical construction, syntactical relation, etc.. is neglected. The recognition of the prevalent linguistic convention is tantamount to the linguistic flexibility derived from freedom to use a variety of expressions to denote one and the same event. Accordingly, saying that 'Falstaff met Mr. Ford' is tantamount to saying that 'Falstaff met Mr. Brook', or 'x follows y' and 'y is preceded by x' refer to the same arrangement of events, or Hesperus, as a 'western' star seen in the evening, and Phosphorus, a 'light-bringing' star seen in the morning, both refer to Venus.41 To assign the truth-value of an utterance expressing the identity, users of the language agree upon a conventionally determined selection of verbal expressions that denote a particular individual.
What happens in the sixth indexed level of description, in the case of the etymological viewpoint (samabhirudha-naya), is drawing the distinction among synonymous expressions or (apparent) coreferential utterances, which have up to now been considered equivalent. To cite the well-known example (NAV. 29), although three epithets in an undiscriminating commonplace usage pertain to one and the same god, nonetheless the name 'Indra' refers in fact to a divine sovereign, the appellation 'Sakra' describes a being possessed of might and the epithet 'Purandara' denotes a destroyer of strongholds etc., in the same manner as words like 'Indra', 'pot' or 'man' have different denotata.42
The situation in Level 6 would be opposite to Level 5 of the verbal viewpoint: here synonyms do generate different reflections in mind.+3