Jaina immediately refer you is in Dr. Bhandarkar’s Search for Jaina Manuscripts,[1] from which they always quote it in full.
Seven modes of assertion.‘You can’, the famous passage runs, ‘affirm existence of a thing from one point of view (Syād asti), deny it from another (Syān nāsti); and affirm both existence and non-existence with reference to it at different times (Syād asti nāsti). If you should think of affirming both existence and non-existence at the same time from the same point of view, you must say that the thing cannot be so spoken of (Syād avaktavyaḥ). Similarly under certain circumstances, the affirmation of existence is not possible (Syād asti avaktavyaḥ); of non-existence (Syān nāsti avaktavyaḥ); and also of both (Syād asti nāsti avaktavyaḥ). What is meant by these seven modes is that a thing should not be considered as existing everywhere, at all times, in all ways, and in the form of everything. It may exist in one place and not in another, and at one time and not at another.’
The example paṇḍits gave the writer to illustrate this important doctrine was that one and the same man is spoken of as father, uncle, father-in-law, son, son-in-law, brother and grandfather.
As an illustration of its use they say:
‘Let us suppose that an agnostic denies the existence of soul in all ways. To him the Jaina Syādvāda would answer that as soul is a substance, it exists. Soul exists in itself and its modifications, but it does not exist in other substances such as matter (pudgala), &c., and also other substances do not exist in soul. So, from this point of view, soul does not exist. But soul sometimes exists and also does not exist at different times. But the soul cannot be spoken of, if we think of affirming its existence and non-existence, at the same time and from the same point of view. Similarly, under certain conditions, viz. when the state of existence (i.e. astitva) itself cannot be spoken of, i.e. exists and exists and does not exist cannot be spoken of at the same time, we are unable to affirm that existence is possible, that non-existence is possible, and that both existence and non-existence are possible. Thus Syādvāda teaches the fundamental theory that everything in the universe is related to every other thing. . . . The Jaina school of philosophy coincides, in one respect, with Hegel’s idea that being and non-being are identical.’[2]
