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2 must be chararen treball 2164 . QUTLINES OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY Sorino
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27 waccording to Jainism, are only partially true and each becomes a dogma as soon as it is understood to represent the whole truth about reality. Equally dogmatic in the eyes of the Jains are two other views which also we come across occasionally in the Upanişads and which maintained that, because neither Being nor non-Being is the truth, reality must be characterized by both or neitheri- thus adding, with characteristic love for subtlety, two more alternatives - both is..and 'is not,' and neither 'is' nor 'is not to the well-known ones of 'is' and 'is not.' The Jains think that reality is so complex in its structure that while every one of these views is true as far as it goes, none is completely so. Its precise nature baffles all attempts to describe it directly and once for all; but it is not impossible to make it known through a series of partially true statements without committing ourselves to any one among them exclusively. Accordingly the Jains enunciate its nature in seven steps, described as the sapta-bhangi or 'the seven-fold formula. Its several steps are:
(1) Maybe, is (Syät asti).
A (2) Maybe, is not (Syát năsti). (3) Maybe, is and is not (Syät asti năsti). At (4) Maybe, is inexpressible (Syát avaktavyah). Rel ', (5) Maybe, is and is inexpressible (Syat asti ca avaktavyah). (6) Maybe, is not and is inexpressible (Syāt nāsti ca avaktavyah). (7) Maybe, is, is not and is inexpressible (Syät asti ca năsti ca
avaktavyah).
If we consider for example an object A, we may say that it is, but it is only in a sense, viz. as A and not also as B. Owing to the indefinite nature of reality, what is now or here A, may become B sometime hence or elsewhere. Thus we must remember when we posit A, that we are not stating absolutely what the nature is of the reality underlying it. So far as its material cause is concerned, a thing has always existed and will always continue to exist; but the particular
+ Mundaka Up., II. i. T; Svetāśvatara Up. iv. 18. See BP. P. 137 and also the passage from Samyuttaka-Nikdya, quoted in Oldenberg's Buddha, P. 249.
