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À SOURCE-BOOK IN JAINA PHILOSOPHY
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SAPTABHANGT Every thing is complex in its nature and it expresses many facets of its characteristics. To give a comprehensive picture of a thing in all its varied aspects the Jainas have formulated seven-fold predications incorporating affirmation, negation and inexpressibility with their possible permutations. We shall discuss about this in the later chapter.
It is necessary to note that Syādvāda presents the predicational form of expressing the nature of reality in different aspects. The seven-fold predications are not fragments of imagination, but they are only expressions of the many facets of reality for the sake of comprehension. Herman Jacobi says that Syādvāda opens the flood-gates of the comprehension of the nature of a thing in its different aspects.
An American philosopher Prof. Archie J. Bahm has stated that Syādvāda is the expression of non-violence in the intellectual form. This doctrine would be more effective to establish world-peace, if popularised. It is the foundational intellectual attitude of the Jainas. Mahatma Gandhi gave importance to non-violence and he emphasised the primacy of Syādvāda as the intellectual basis of the ethical doctrine of non-violence. Acarya Vinobha Bhave has emphasised the need of understanding Syādvāda for the sake of world peace. CLARIFICATION OF SOME MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT
SYĀDVADA It would not be out of place to mention some misconceptions regarding the validity of the theory of Saptabhangi In the earlier portion of the Agamas, roots of Saptabhangi have been mentioned briefly.2 Ācāyra Kundakunda has mentioned some predications of the Saptabhangi as affirmation, negation and affirmation-negation,
Later philosophers like Samantabhadra, Siddhasena, Akalanka, Vidyānandi, Hemacandra, Vādideva etc., have developed the Saptabhangi doctrine in its fuller and detailed aspects of predications. Some
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Syādvāda mañjarī 23 ţikā. Bhagavati, 7, 2, 773 Pancāstikāya, Pravacanasāra
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