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He proposed in its place his ‘four-alternatives' view of truth, catuskoti (i) it is, (ii) it is-not; (iii) it is and is-not; and (iv) it neither is nor is-not. K.N. Jayatilleke, whose study of early Buddhist epistemology is the best that I have read, argues that these two theories, the syādvāda of the Jains and the catuskoți of the Buddhists, are radically different and had different epistemological uses. According to him, "The former represents seven forms of prediction, which suplement each other, each of which may be true simultaneously with the others from its own standpoint. The latter
presents four alternatives of which (as understood in the Canon) only one could be true.'' In other words, 'when one alternative was taken as true, it was assumed that every one of the other alternatives was false.' " In syādvāda, each of the seven points of view may be true simultaneously.
With great reverence for Lord Buddha, it seems to me, though, that his criticism of syādvāda and of anekānta amounted to begging the question. The question is precisely whether one can ever say about anything with certainty that one knows what it is, and what one claims one knows is also all that there is to it? Anekānta does not suggest, which the Buddha thought it did, that if know, I should at the same time also say I do not know, or that I know and do not know, or that I neither know nor not-know. If it did, what kind of language would that be in the daily transactions of human life? Far from securing any kind of freedom, it would rather make ordinary life impossible.
When I ask the railways inquiry office 'does the Tamilnadu Express leave for Chennai from the New Delhi railway station at 6.30 pm?', I expect a definite answer that it does not. What kind of language would it be if I am told 'it does, it does not: it both does and does-not, it neither does not does-not: the whole thing is indescribable.' and anekānta is invoked in support of that answer? However absurd that response would be, indeed maddening, and a caricature of anekānta, it is also true that whoever lives in India knows from experience that so far as the Indian railways are concerned, all possibilities are open.
In order to refute decisively the multi-value logic of anekānta, you may ask me: “are you here?', and add: “this question is amenable to one absolutely definite answer, that you are here, visibly. Then it cannot at the same time also be true that you are not here? With no logical absurdity
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