________________ Niyamasara नियमसार the ascetics as well as the laymen understand the concepts and tenets contained in these texts. Fortunate are those who are able to reach, read and assimilate the teachings contained in these Scriptures. Acarya Kundakunda is said to have written 84 pahuda but only the ones mentioned above are existent today. All his compositions are in Prakrit language. 'Niyamasara' of Acarya Kundakunda First, a brief on 'naya' - the particular standpoint The ordinary human being cannot rise above the limitations of his senses; his apprehension of reality is partial and it is valid only from a particular viewpoint. This leads to the 'nayavada' of the Jainas. When ordinary human knowledge is partial, a new method of stating our approach to the complex reality had to be devised, and that is the doctrine of conditional predications - syadvada. Thus, syaduada is the direct result of the strong awareness of the complexity of the object of knowledge and the limitation of human apprehension and expression. Objects possess innumerable attributes and may be conceived from as many points-of-view, i.e., objects truly are subject to all-sided knowledge (possible only in omniscience). What is not composed of innumerable attributes, in the sphere of the three times, is also not existent, like a skyflower. To comprehend the object from one particular standpoint is the scope of naya (the one-sided method of comprehension). Naya comprehends one specific attribute of the object but pramana - valid knowledge - comprehends the object in its fullness. Pramana does not make a distinction between the substance and its attributes but grasps the object in its entirety. But naya looks at the object from a particular point-of-view and puts emphasis on a particular aspect of the object. Bot] pramana and naya are forms of knowledge; pramana is sakaladesa - comprehensive and absolute, and naya is vikaladesa - partial and relative. Naya looks at the object from a particular point-of-view and presents the picture of it in relation to that view; the awareness of other aspects is in the background and not ignored. Thus, partial knowledge from a particular point-of-view that is under (xxii)
