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Society, Epistemology and Logic in Indian Tradition
(aneka-dharmātmaka vastu). It is very much useful to understand the truth with various aspects. Nayas are used in daily life now in understanding the others' views and expressing our own views. Theory of naya is helpful in synthesizing the philosophical ideas applying view points in them. This theory is also a solution to the problems of obstination and harshness in behaviour. It develops an art of speaking with avoiding confrontations and also understanding the things in a way to solve the problems which generate confrontations. Hence naya theory is very much useful in our daily life.
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The doctrine of Nayābhāsa:
When a view point excludes and rules out another view points, then it is called as 'nayābhāsa'. Nayābhāsa can be defined as absolutistic fallacy which consists in treating a relative truth as absolute truth. Since different philosophical systems understand and describe reality in different ways, different nayas can be correlated to different philosophical systems. The doctrine of naya in this way is a metaphilosophical doctrine. In the history of Jainism Siddhasenasūri (5th century) compared Indian philosophical systems with nayas. Afterwards Akalankabhatta (8th century) described those systems as the cases of nayābhāsa. The idea was that though different systems of philosophy understand and describe reality from a partial view-point, they regard their understanding and description as absolute and complete truth. As a result their view-point becomes a pseudo-view-point (nayābhāsa) or a defective view-point (durnaya). Vādidevasūri (12th century) has given examples of different doctrines of various Indian philosophies as nayābhāsa, due to their
