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Samayasāra
Introduction/Premble to Chapters I & II Anekānta (non-absolutism) of Jains. 6. Two Categories of Naya
Jains, recognizing the extreme complexity of the nature of reality, introduced the technique of naya. The reality which has many facets would lead to multitude of description. Every one of them may be partially true, but not one of them would be the whole truth.
We have already mentioned above the two states of the soul. The pure and perfect state-the emancipated state-of the soul is to be achieved. In the ordinary worldly state of existence, the soul is radically different. Its infinite glory is dimmed by alien conditions and limitations. In this state, Jīva is an embodied consciousness or an organism which can be perceived by the sense-organs through its gross or physical body.
In its worldly existence, the soul is not only associated with a body of its own but with several other animate and inanimate objects. Thus the soul which is by its own intrinsic nature a complex entity becomes much more complex by identifying itself through its interests with its environment of things (including body). Under such conditions, it is an extremely difficult problem to define the precise nature of the soul. Hence, the necessity for using the technique of naya. .
There are two main categories of nayas :
(i) Transcendental aspect or niscaya naya. It represents the ultimate, fundamental and integrated point of view. The soul is looked at as a whole with all the richness of its attributes but no distinction is being made between the substance and its attributesqualities and modes. That is to say in this aspect, only the substance is considered to be the entire reality, while its attributes etc. are relegated to mere adjuncts, for the time being, but not dismissed as absoutely non-existent.
(ii) Empirical aspect or vyavahāra naya. It represents the popular, conventional, practical or pragmatic view. The complex nature of the soul is broken down into its diverse attributes and our attention may be directed to any one particular attribute with which the soul is to be identified at the moment. In other words, in this
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