SAPTABHANGINAYA

SAPTABHANGINAYA - 7 forms of judgment
By using syat, we get seven forms of judgments known as Saptabhanginaya.
1.      Syat asti - relatively a thing is real. Somehow S is P.
2.      Syat nasti - relatively a thing is unreal. Somehow S is not P.
3.      Syat asti nasti - relatively a thing is real and unreal . Somehow S is P and is also not P.
4.      Syat avaktavyam - relatively a thing is indescribable. Somehow S is indescribable.
5.      Syat asti avaktavyam - Somehow S is P and is also indescribable.
6.      Syat nasti avaktavyam - Somehow S is not P and is also indescribable.
7.      Syat asti nasti avaktavyam - Somehow S is P and is also not P and also indescribable.
Saptabhanginaya logically leads to the doctrine of Mannyness of Reality.

Philosophical value of 4th form - Syat avaktavyam
Syat avaktavyam - somehow S is indescribable.
A jar is black when raw and red when it is baked. But if we are asked, what is the real color of jar under all conditions, then only answer would be that jar cannot be described.
·         Though an object can be describe from different standpoints, in different aspects separately, it cannot be described at all if no such distinction of standpoint and aspect is made.
·         This points out that philosophical wisdom does not always consist in the ability to answer a question by a straight affirmative or negative, but also in realizing that some questions, by their very nature, are unanswerable.
·         Recognition of this form of judgment shows that jainas logic does not violate the principle of contradiction.
Criticism
  1.  They have give 7-scattered forms of judgments but fails to synthesize them, infact, they cannot be synthesized in the absence of absolute.
  2. They failed to recognize the fact that reality is a system where all dualism, pluralism and contradictions are dissolved.
  3.   Last three judgments are superfluous and redundant.
  4.  They have earlier criticized the conception of indescribable as a contradictory but they themselves have used it.

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