Confluence of Opposites

SR No.: 006704
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Champat Rai Jain
Publication Year: 1921
Total Pages: 422
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 393

CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES
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The position of Jainism is clear from the contents of our third lecture, which bas been the true basis of comparison and the means of reconciliation of the diverse faiths examined by us. As a matter of fact, the Creed of the Tirthamkaras furnishes the only platform where all other creeds may meet and be reconciled to one another. This “Confluence of Opposites," as the reconciliation of the apparently conflicting religions may be termed, is not possible elsewhere, not because they have no platform for a gathering of men, por be. cause they are all characterized by intolerence, nor because they do not desire to be reconciled, but because they are the followers of Ekinta-Vâda (one-sided absolutism), the irreconcilable antithesis of AnekantaVadır (many-sidedness or relativity of thought). The difference in the two views lies in this that while a non-J aina would insist on the truth of his own faith, and would absolutely deny the validity of an opposite wiew, the Jaina would actually go out in search of the point of view (if any there be) from which the opposite view might be maintained. You have before you, in these lectures, the result of the Jaiņa research in the domain of religion. I need not tell you what conclu. sion it points to. There is a very happy agreement, as we have seen, amongst all religions on the points established in the Jrinn Siddhantı, every other ancient creed vying, as it were, with its compeers in offering its quota for the glorification of the Scientific Truth. This in itself, I am sure, is ample reward for the labour