New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

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

Page 79

Conditional Dialectics
71
more exact, a real exists in its present mode and does not exist in its modes that have passed away or will come in the future.
The cycle of origination and cessation goes on uninterrupted. The mode that arises is the affirmation, whereas the mode that has passed away or is yet to arise is the negation of the object. Affirmation and negation are thus simultaneous moments of the real.
A sensuous cognition of an object is positive in character and never negative according to some thinkers. The inference (anumāna) is, however, positive and negative both. According to the conditional dialectics (syādvāda) affirmation and negation are the attributes of the real. We perceive fire and the affirmation in this case means that the fire exists in a particular place. When we try to infer fire from smoke, the existence of smoke proves the existence of fire in a particular place while the existence of a contradictory probans (hetu) proves the non-existence of fire. But the affirmation or the negation in the conditional dialectics is not related to space or time of the object. They are related to the determination of the nature of the object. The fire in a particular place or time exists in its own nature, that is, its affirmation is dependent on its constituents and its denial is dependent on the elements that do not constitute its character. Affirmation and negation are co-existent in an object. On account of its positive character a thing is existent in its own nature, while on account of its negative aspect it is not mixed up with what is other than itself. In other words, the nature of an object is definite on account of its self-affirmation and negation of alien elements. This is indeed the reality of the real. The word 'syat' defines this definiteness of the nature of an object.
The conditional dialectics (syadvāda) is also known as the exposition by division (vibhajyavāda)6 or the doctrine of alternatives (bhajanāvāda)? This follows from the following exhortation of Lord Mahāvīra: 'A monk should take resort to the doctrine of exposition by division (vibhajyavāda); he should utilise all possible alternatives and should never adhere to an absolutistic attitude in explaining the nature of a thing.' The Lord himself explained many a problem by means of this method of division.
Once Jayanti asked the Lord which was better between the states of slumber and awakening.
'For some souls, O Jayanti! the slumber is commendable, but for others awakening is wholesome."