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NYAYA AND JAINA EPISTEMOLOGY
is true but only under certain conditions. A statement about a thing independent of the stipulation of occasion, can not be informative in the genuine sense of the term. The Jaina point of view is non-absolutistic. Reality is manysided. A thing literally has innumerable features. Therefore, a genuine characterization of a thing consists in prefixing each statement by the expression 'syat'. The word 'syad' indicates model predicate. It is indicative of possibility. But ut is not logical possibility or possibility proper. Rather it is possibility in the sense of contingency. Syādvāda harmonises apparently opposite features of a thing and presents the view of truth as comprehensive synthesis. It affirms consistency of contradictories. In Syādvāda all the aspects of truth are synthesised. As is said, "Syādvāda is that conditional method in which the modes or predications affirm negate or both affirm and negate severally and jointly in seven different ways a certain attribute of a thing without incompatibility in a certain context".3 Padmarajiah rightly points out "the Jainas maintain that saptabhangi offers such a well ordered scheme in which the modes are exclusive of one another but at the same time in their totality, exhaustive of the many-sided truth of the indeterminate real under discussion".4
The saptabhangi is a set of seven formulae. In this method of seven-fold predication, the expression 'syāt' i. e. in some respect is invariably accompanied in every mode. It is suggestive of the determinate context of the mode. Jainism believes that to guarantee the correctness of each, assertion should be qualified by giving determinate values to determinables. Because of inexhaustibly diverse character of reals assertions made from one point of view cannot be regarded absolute. A thing may have aspects significant in
