has no doubt some general traits, shared by all books, but it has some special traits as well.  Its atoms are continually suffering some displacement and rearrangement, but yet it has been existing as a book for some time past and will exist for some time in the future as well.  All these characteristics, go to make up the essence of the “book” of our everyday experience, and none of these can be separated and held up as being the concept of a “book.”  This according to the Jains is the Sa@mkhya way of looking at things.

The first view of paryaya-naya called _@rjusutra_ is the Buddhist view which does not believe in the existence of the thing in the past or in the future, but holds that a thing is a mere conglomeration of characteristics which may be said to produce effects at any given moment.  At each new moment there are new collocations of new qualities and it is these which may be regarded as the true essence of our notion of things [Footnote ref 1].

The nayas as we have already said are but points of view, or aspects of looking at things, and as such are infinite in number.  The above four represent only a broad classification of these.  The Jains hold that the Nyaya-Vais’e@sika, the Vedanta, the Sa@mkhya, and the Buddhist, have each tried to interpret and systematize experience from one of the above four points of view, and each regards the interpretation from his point of view as being absolutely true to the exclusion of all other points of view.  This is their error (nayabhasa), for each standpoint represents only one of the many points of view from which a thing can be looked at.  The affirmations from any point of view are thus true in a limited sense and under limited conditions.  Infinite numbers of affirmations may be made of things from infinite points of view.  Affirmations or judgments according to any naya or standpoint cannot therefore be absolute, for even contrary affirmations of the very selfsame

_______________________________________________________

__________

[Footnote 1:  The other standpoints of paryaya-naya, which represent grammatical and linguistic points of view, are s’abda-naya, samabhiru@dha-naya, and evambhula-naya.  See Vis’e@savas’yaka bha@sya, pp. 895-923.]

179

things may be held to be true from other points of view.  The truth of each affirmation is thus only conditional, and inconceivable from the absolute point of view.  To guarantee correctness therefore each affirmation should be preceded by the phrase syat (may be).  This will indicate that the affirmation is only relative, made somehow, from some point of view and under some reservations and not in any sense absolute.  There is no judgment which is absolutely true, and no judgment which is absolutely false.  All judgments are true in some sense and false in another.  This brings us to the famous Jaina doctrine of Syadvada [Footnote ref 1].

The Doctrine of Syadvada.