ing, we say, is
inadmissible 'on account of the impossibility in one thing.' That is to
say, it is impossible that contradictory attributes such as being and
non-being should at the same time belong to one and the same thing; just
as observation teaches us that a thing cannot be hot and cold at the
same moment. The seven categories asserted by you must either be so many
and such or not be so many and such; the third alternative expressed in
the words 'they either are such or not such' results in a cognition of
indefinite nature which is no more a source of true knowledge than doubt
is. If you should plead that the cognition that a thing is of more than
one nature is definite and therefore a source of true knowledge, we deny
this. For the unlimited assertion that all things are of a non-exclusive
nature is itself something, falls as such under the alternative
predications 'somehow it is,' 'somehow it is not,' and so ceases to be a
definite assertion. The same happens to the person making the assertion
and to the result of the assertion; partly they are, partly they are
not. As thus the means of knowledge, the object of knowledge, the
knowing subject, and the act of knowledge are all alike indefinite, how
can the Tirthakara (Jina) teach with any claim to authority, and how can
his followers act on a doctrine the matter of which is altogether
indeterminate? Observation shows that only when a course of action is
known to have a definite result people set about it without hesitation.
Hence a man who proclaims a doctrine of altogether indefinite contents
does not deserve to be listened to any more than a drunken man or a
madman.--Again, if we apply the Jaina reasoning to their doctrine of the
five categories, we have to say that on one view of the matter they are
five and on another view they are not five; from which latter point of
view it follows that they are either fewer or more than five. Nor is it
logical to declare the categories to be indescribable. For if they are
so, they cannot be described; but, as a matter of fact, they are
described so that to call them indescribable involves a contradiction.
And if you go on to say that the categories on being described are
ascertained to be such and such, and at the same time are not
ascertained to be such and such, and that the result of their being
ascertained is perfect knowledge or is not perfect knowledge, and that
imperfect knowledge is the opposite of perfect knowledge or