Practical Path

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 25

THE PRACTICAL PATI.
substance owing to the action of atoms of hydrogen and oxygen on one another.
For the above reason the Jaina Siddhậnta insists on the employment of the word syât (somehow or from a particular point of view) before every judgment or statement of fact, though in ordinary parlance and composition it is generally dispensed with. There are three kinds of judgment, the affirmative, the negative and the one which gives expression to the idea of indescribableness. Of these, the first kind affirms and the second denies the existence of a quality, property or thing, but the third declares an object to be indescribable. A thing is said to be indescribable when both existence and non-existence are to be attributed to it at one and the same time. These three forms of judgment give rise to seven possible modes of predication which are set out below :--
(1) Syâdasti (somehow, i. e., from some particular point of view a thing may be said to exist),
(2) Syậnnasti (somehow the thing does not exist),
(3) Syád usti nasti (affirmation of existence from one point of view and of non-existence from another),
(4) Syâda vaktavya (somehow the thing is indescribable),
(5) Syadasti avaktarya (a combination of the first and the fourth forms of predication,
(6) Syânnasti araktaryu (a combination of the second and the fourth forms), and
(7) Syddasti nasti araktavya (a combination of the first, second and fourth forms of judgment).
This sevenfold system of predication is called the