Anekantajay patakakhyam Prakaranam Part 2

SR No.: 008406
Original Sutra Author: Haribhadrasuri
Author: Munichandrasuri
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra
Publication Year: 1947
Total Pages: 503
Language: Sanskrit, English
Classification: Book_Devnagari & Philosophy
File Size: 11 MB

Page 117

INTRODUCTION
: According to Jainism the world is without a beginning and an end. So it is not possible to fix a date when barbarism of human beings got replaced by a civilized and cultured humanity. But, in India there have been oycles of barbarism and civilization following each other in succession. Of these several chains, if we were to fix up our mind on the last chain when barbarism died and civilization had its hey-day, the noble and ennobling principle of ahińsä must have been enunciated and practiced by some great. saint of those days.
When this ahimsi is allowed to play its role on an intellectual plane it teaches us to examine and respect the opinions of others as they, too, are some of the angles of vision or pathways to reality which is many-sided and enable us to realize and practise truth in its entirety. This implies that ahimsa—the Jaina attitude of 'intellectual ahińsc' is the origin of anekāntavāda. In other words the Jaina principle of respect for life (ahimsa) is the origin of respect for the opinion of others' (anekantavāda).
In the intro. (p. LXXVI) to SM, it is said :
"If, however, in view of the fact that the doctrine is attributed to the recluses and Brāhmaṇas' we hold that it could not have been the "Syādvāda" of the Jainas, it must be understood as an early reference to the 'anirvacaniya. tāvada' of the Vedāntin, which lod to the "Syâdvāda" of the Jaina as the next positive step." Misunderstandings
Not only ordinary people but even some competent scholars at times fail to grasp a theory or a doctrine with which they are not quite familiar and especially when it seems to be in direct conflict with the views held by them. Anekāntavāda of the Jainas is such a theory, and it has been misunderstood by some of the scholars of the olden and modern days in one or more of its aspects such as its nature, scope, meaning, origin,
1 It means abstinence from injuring any living being however low its
status may be and sympathy for one and all the living beings. For details see my paper “The Doctrine of Abiṁså in the Jaina Canon" (partly pub. in JUB Vol. XV, pt. 2; Arts No. 31).