Niksepas (Positings, Installations)

The concept of Niksepas (positings) has been admitted to know rightly about the entities like the living beings etc.

There are four kinds of positings :

The Namal positing (Nāma) is to give a name to an entity or person irrespective of his class or attributes etc.

For example, naming a person as Mahāvira (Great hero).

The representational positing (Sthāpanā) is defined as installation of an entity into the images made up of wood, stone, painting and dice etc. assuming ‘this is that’ (man or animal etc.). It has two varieties with respect to the venerability or otherwise of the image.

For example, installation of the Lord Chandraprabha in the stone image is the Venerable form of similar representation (Tadākāra Sthāpanā). The other type of representation may be non-venerable and dis-similar-form of representation.

The substantive positing (Dravya) is defined as that entity which did attain the qualities or which will attain them or will be attained by them. The modal positing (Bhāva) is characterised by grasping the entity in its current state of existence or condition.