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combine into dvyanukas or binary atoms, three of which go to form a tryanuka or tertiary one and so forth, till masses of earth, water, fire and air are produced. It is this theistic position that gives altogether a different turn to the Nyaya-Vais'esika atomic theory. The later Nyaya-Vais'esika ideas and hair-splitting discussions about dvyanukas and tryanukas have no place in Jaina exposition.
INTRODUCTION.
ATOMISM ELSEWHERE.-In the Vedantic cosmology there is no place for real atoms, because their acceptance would not be consistent with the uniqueness of Brahman. The word anu is known to Upanisads, but it stands for what is infinitesimally small and has nothing to do with the indivisible ultimate unit of matter. It is only some Buddhists that accept eternal atoms corresponding to four elements like the Vais'esikas; Vijñānavādins, however, when they deny the reality of substance, cannot accept real atoms. The Jaina paramānu is similar to the atoms recognised by Leucippus and Democritus in its basic conception that it is an eternal and indivisible minute particle of matter, that it is beyond sense-perception, that it is made of the same substance, and that there are no four classes of atoms corresponding to elements; but the varying size and form of atoms with corresponding sourness etc. accepted by them is not possible in Jaina conception. The combinatory urge in atoms is due to their degrees of cohesiveness and aridness according to Jainism; but according to Democritus as explained by Epicurus, a primordial motion of atoms was assumed, which function in the Nyaya-Vais'esika is fulfilled by the will of God. These similarities and dissimilarities do not by themselves lead to any chronological results, as they involve other wider issues; however, taking a constructive view of the Jaina atomic theory and comparing it with the Nyaya-Vais'esika one, the Jaina view is much more primitive, and as Jacobi remarks the Jainas 'seem to have worked out their system from the most primitive notions about matter'.1
7. SYADVADA, OR THE THEORY OF CONDITIONAL PREDICATION.A single substance is endowed with infinite modifications, and there are infinite classes of substances: to know one substance fully is, to know the whole range of the object of knowledge; and this is possible only in omniscience. The sense-perception is graded and partial (I, 40, 48-51). A substance is endowed with qualities (or attributes) and modifications; though the substance is the same, it comes to be different because of its passing through different modifications; so when something is to be stated about a substance, viewed through a flux of modifications, there would be seven modes of predication: according to some modification or the other it is stated that a substance is, is not, is indescribable, is and is not, is and is indescribable, is not and is indescribable, and is, is not and is indescribable (II, 22-3).
SIDE-LIGHT ON THE BACK-GROUND OF SYADVADA.-This is the famous Saptabhangi or Syādvāda of Jainism. From the way in which Kundakunda has described this Syadvāda one thing is clear that the doctrinal elements, which have led the Jaina philosophers to enunciate such a seemingly
1 Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics Vol. II, p. 199.
