Book Title: World of Philosophy
Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan
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respect) in all the seven varieties of a particular predication. The particle syāt' indicates the many-sided nature of a proposition It is a doctrine of relativity of truth, according to which affirmative and negative statements can be made in regard to one and the same things in the following way :
1. Relatively the pot does exist. 2. Relatively the pot does not exist, 3. Relatively the pot does exist and does not exist, 4. Relatively the pot is indescribable. 5. Relatively the pot does exist and is indescribable. 6. Relatively the pot does not exist and is indescribable.
7. Relatively the pot does exist, does not exist, and is indescribable:20
Each philosophical proposition is subjected to this sevenfold formulation in order to remove the danger of one-sidedness (ekāntavāda). This is also called saptabhangi, because, it consists of seven kinds of expression regarding one and the same thing with reference to its particular aspects, one by one, without any inconsistancy, by means of affirmation and negation, made either separately or together.21 This is also called 'anekāntavāda, since it expresses the object that possesses many characteristics.22
The Jainas upholding this doctrine of anekārtavāda, state that the theories of other schools of philosophy being but partial views of the comprehensive reality are naturally at variance with each other and that they would find their final reconciliation in the syādvāda or anekāntavāda. On the basis of this doctrine, therefore, the Jainas try to reconcile some of the fundamental doctrines of non-Jaina school of thought, such as, the doctrine of causality, the problem of universal and particular, the problem of reality, the doctrine of self, the theory of sounds and so on.
Siddhasena Divākara, probably, is the first man in the Jaina philosophical history, who has laid down the foundation stone of reconciliation of other schools of thought by synthesizing the Sāńkhya, the Buddhist and the Vaišesika's views with that of anekāntavāda. He observes that the system of philosophy taught by Kapila is a repre
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