New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

Author(s): Mahaprajna Acharya, Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Today and Tommorrow Printers and Publishers

Page 72

64 New Dimensions in Jaina Logic
order—the object in its wholeness is known through valid cognition (pramāna) in the first instance, and subsequently the same object is cognised in parts through the nayas (viewpoints). All our knowledge is synthetic in the beginning, and becomes analytic at the next stage. When an object is known through valid cognition and the nayas, a name is assigned to it. For instance, a thing of a particular shape and capable of holding water is named 'jar'. This nomenclature is responsible for the relationship of denotative and denotatum between the word “jar' and its referent (the objective jar). This is the initial stage of word-meaning relationship which undergoes semantic expansion in due course. Thus a drawing or a picture of a jar, though incapable of carrying water, is also called jar; likewise a mass of clay (material cause of jar) and a potsherd is also called jar. At this stage of semantic expansion it becomes imperative to ascertain the intended meaning of a word precisely in a particular context of its use. It is only for the purpose of defining the particular intended meaning of such word that an adjunct is added to it. This method is called the classification of imports of words (niksepa).!
There is no prescribed limit of exposition through niksepa. The scope of such classification of imports is co-extensive with the range of meanings that a word is capable of expressing. The minimum types of such classification are four--an object must have some name and also some shape; it had also modes that are past, as well as the modes that are to come along with the modes that it has at present. This is how the four basic niksepas naturally follow:
1. A name (nama-niksepa) or a demonstrative symbol. 2. Form (sthāpanā-niksepu), an image, imaginary or real. 3. Substance (dravya-niksepa), past or future modes of the
material cause. Essence (bhāva-niksepa), the present mode constituting the essence of the thing.
4
Ācārya Jinabhadragani Ksamáśramana's exposition of niksepa is quite different. According to him the nama-niksepa consists in nomenclature of a thing, while its shape, material cause and the effect are respectively the sthāpanā, dravya and bhava niksepa." In fact, the nomenclature, assumption of a form, causality and the sequel are the minimum determinations of a thing. An object, therefore, must necessarily have these four determinants.16