Spiritual Awakening and other Essays

Author(s): Kamalchand Sogani
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 60

4. Device of Syādvāda as the key to the pointed communicability of knowledge
The significant fact about knowledge is its communicability. When the knowledge is for one's own self, the question of communicability can be dispensed with; but when it is for the other, the question needs serious consideration. Communicability is accomplished through properly worded propositions and formulation of propositions is dependent on the content of knowledge. If there is discordance between the content of knowledge and formulation of propositions, serious misunderstandings are bound to arise. Syādvāda is the linguistic device to represent without any omission and distortion the content of knowledge. Thus in a way Syādvāda and knowledge become the obverse and the converse of the same coin.
The Jaina thinkers propound that the object has infinite antagonistic characteristics some known, some in the process of being discovered and many as yet unknown. This is known as the doctrine of Anekāntavada. Syādvāda is the method of communicating the manifold characteristics of a thing to the other. Thus Syādvāda is the expression of Anekāntavāda in language. If Anekantavāda is the mode of cognition, Syadvāda is the mode of expression.
The significant point to be comprehended in regard to Anekāntavāda is that every characteristic of a multiphased things is maintaining its identity through the existence of its opposite as its aspect.41 In fact, a thing cannot be the same thing without the negation of other things in it. For example, a colour can not remain a colour without the negation of other characteristics like taste, smell etc. in it. Thus nonexistence is as much an essential aspect of the real as existence is. Negative propositions cannot be asserted
Spiritual Awakening (Samyagdarśana) and Other Essays
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