Truthfullness and Truth in Jaina Philosophy

Author(s): Peter Flugel
Publisher: ZZ_Anusandhan

Page 18

मार्च २०१०
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neither-true-nor-false, and therefore permissible. It must be assumed that only the use of strategically ambiguous messages for the purpose of creating vairagya-shocks is seen as legitimate, but not language which creates doubt about Jainism in the minds of believers. He seems to follow Malayagiri (PannT), who argued that from the niscaya-naya not only satya-mṛṣā but also asatya-mṛṣā statements are false if they are spoken with the intention of deceiving others' (MALVANIYĀ 1971: 346). However, Viy 18.7.1 (749a) states that, by definition, the speech of a Kevalin, because it is harmless, can only be true or neither-true-nor false.73 The statement associates higher moral truth with this type of speech, which can thus be compared with the 'twilight-language' (sandha-bhāṣā) of Tantric Buddhism, which is also characterised as neither-true-nor-false.74 Jambūvijaya's edition of the Thaṇa 4.23 (238) contains the following commentary of According to OKUDA (1975: 129), MAC 119 explains samsaya-vayaṇi <samśaya-vacana> as 'speech which expresses doubt'. But its commentator Vasunandin (11th-12th century) interprets this as 'speech of children and old people' as well as the sounds of (five-sensed) 'roaring buffalos' etc., which cause doubt as to their meaning, while the Digambara authors Aparajita and Aśādhara and the Śvetâmbara Haribhadra commenting on DVS 7, read samsayakarani simply as 'ambiguous speech' (anekârtha-sādhāraṇā). Haribhadra classifies speech of children as aṇakkhara <anakṣara>, incomprehensible, which also figures as the ninth and last category listed in MAC 119, which Vasunandin reserves for expressions of animals of two-four senses, and for sounds created by snipping fingers etc. (OKUDA 1975: 129).75
Vyākṛtā bhāṣā refers to clear distinct speech with explicit unambiguous meaning (RATNACANDRA 1988 IV: 511).76 There is no example given by the commentaries for distinct speech which is neither-true-nor-untrue. Avyākṛtā-bhāṣā, refers to indistinct involuted or poetic speech consisting of obscure
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