Lessons of Ahimsa and Anekanta for Contemporary Life

SR No.: 014006
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Tara Sethia
Publisher: California State Polytechnic University Pomona
Publication Year: 2002
Total Pages: 170
Language: English
Classification: Seminar & Articles
File Size: 14 MB

Page 105

Lessons of Ahimsă and Anekanta for Contemporary Life
Jainism as inherently superior to those sectarian and religious paths which do not adopt such a perspective.
Yaśovijaya's initial technique in confronting Dharmasāgara's position is to assess the various types of false belief which have been traditionally identified in Jainism. These include not merely wrongheaded attachment to what is incorrect but also an indiscriminate attachment to all views as being true (anābhigrahika), effectively a kind of misconceived relativism. Individuals in thrall to such intellectual dysfunctioning should not be accommodated in any way. However, Yaśovijaya makes the general point that even those who through the power of delusion subscribe to false intellectual and religious positions may nonetheless have that quiescence or calm characteristic of the Jain path. This positive view of non-Jains is bolstered by reference to Haribhadra who had claimed that Hindus such as Patañjali, the author of the Yoga Sūtras, could be incorporated into the lower stages of the Jain path by virtue of possession of yogic insight (yogadęsti).
This gives rise to an inevitable question, how non-Jains can be in possession of the necessary moral qualities in the first place without direct participation within the Jain path? Yaśovijaya attempts to address this by discussing Jainism in terms of its inner (bhāva) and outer (dravya) characteristics. Non-Jains, even though lacking totally correct discrimination, can reach Jainism in the inner, spiritual sense simply through being servants of the jinas. As a purely internal perspective, however, this might be regarded as having the unwelcome result of doing away with the necessary socio-religious distinction between Jain and non-Jain, so Yaśovijaya'insists that such individuals must be "free of the fault of attachment to what is untrue” (galitāsadgrahadoșa). In other words, acknowledgement of the authority of the jinas is worthless if it still involves promotion and advocacy of views contrary to their teachings (a standpoint which, it must be admitted is slightly at variance with what Yaśovijaya has stated before). Yaśovijaya invokes once again the centrality of
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