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THE JAINA LOGIC OF SEVEN-FOLD PREDICATION R. N. Mukerji
1. Partial and All-round View-points in Jainism, Vikalādesa and Sakalādeśa
According to Jainism every object of experience is complex, and it can be viewed either analytically, part by part, or wholly in an integral vision. The first is covered in the doctrine of nayas (nayavada), the second in that of syadvāda.1 While there is no harm in considering one aspect of a thing at a time, to regard it as the sole nature of the thing is nayābhāsa, like blind men coming to take parts of an elephant as the whole creature (andhagajanya ya). According to the Jainas, Nyaya Vaiśeṣika position represents naigamanayābhāsa in that universals and particulers are both admitted but in an isolated and non-relative sense. Advaita Vedanta and Sankhya represent sangrahanayabhasa in that the former reduces all diversities to one sat, and the latter to one cause in prakṛti, Cārvāka is a case of Vyavahāranayabhāsa and Buddhism of ṛjusūtranyābhāsa. The grammarians represent extreme form of sabdanayabhasa in that they regard not only synonyms as of one import, but also non-synonyms, all being referred to a single primary word sphoța.2
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The all round view is also possible in two ways, discursively or indirectly (asākṣāt) and integrally or directly (sākṣāt). The first is the method of syadvada, also called sāpekṣavāda or relative approach by combining in seven-fold predication all possible partial stand-points. The second is the completely integral view of many-faceted reality by the kevalin or realized
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Siddhasena Divākara, Nyāyāvatāra, kā. 30, with commentaries of Devabhadra and Siddhaṛşı
Malliṣena, Syadvādamañjarī (SM), with Hemacandra, Anyayoga-VyavcchedaDvātriṛśikā (AVD), Ed. A. B. Dhruva (1933), XXVIII, 155-165.
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