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ANEKĀNTAVĀDA AND
WORLD-PEACE
Bbagchandra Jain
Ours is an age of intellectual dwarfs and selfish giants. We are so elated at our achievements, small or big, that we attribute to ourselves all the good qualities of head and heart. We regard ourselves as extra ordinarily unusal. We are so sure of our righteousness that anybody who differs from us is promptly labelled as imbecelic. Honest divergence of opinion has become a rare commodity. Our egoistic tendency and mean mentality cause us to disregard other conceptions and notions. Further on account of our materialistic and atheistic tendencies we are unable to overcome the social problems that are staring us in the face.
The clashes and conflicts that abound the world are due mainly to the derth of economic equality, sound ecclesiastic outlook, tolerance and humility. The real threat to the world-peace comes from superstitious or suffen ideological gulf which exists between one na ion and another, between one people and another. It is the doctrine of Anekāntavāda and Syādvāda that can sound the deathknell of this ideological conflict.
By nature every person is loveable and peace-loving. But his indelible brand of faith makes him restless, causing him to go astray. Today people have assumed the shape of power-mongers. They hanker after physical pleasure and worldly fame. Faithlessness and immorality carry them to an unfathomable depth of ruin. Destructive nuclear weapons have intoxicated the animal nature in man. Our hope for world-peace, whether in democracy or commu
nism, Nazism, or Fascism, is reduced to dust. The recent Indo-Pak, Jain Education International
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