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 107

Lessons of Ahimsa and Anekanta for Contemporary Life
(anyalingasiddha) could not be correct. It must therefore be concluded, claims Yasovijaya, that individuals such as Patanjali follow a code of behaviour approved of both by their own path and that of the Jains. To advance on a religious path, one must have positive qualities and if another path does happen to concur with one's own in that respect, then that merely strengthens it.
According to Yasovijaya, the Jain teachings are multifarious in as much as they instil various qualities in different types of individuals who have differing responses to such teachings. However, at the same time these teachings are founded on the solid unifying basis of watchful moral behaviour (apramāda). Thus, any statement occurring in another tradition which promotes a genuine spiritual stance and is at the same time in accord with Jain teaching must in actuality be interpreted as deriving from Jainism. What must be regarded as disbarring another view from accommodation within Jainism is not so much the view itself as some sort of passionate attachment towards it. Yasovijaya, following Haribhadra, refers to the possibility of what seems to be a general category of religion (sāmanyadharma) which transcends sectarian boundaries:
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Those others who [broadly] conform to the [Jain] path cannot be deemed to be heretical simply on the grounds that they do not understand ontological categories such as the soul in the manner approved by the Jains, for their position [does actually] end up in their understanding these categories correctly, provided there is abandonment of partiality towards any disputed part [of the doctrine]...This is not just a question of accidental resemblance to the Jain path... These individuals are in fact involved in samanyadharma."
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However, perhaps predictably, it is clear that samanyadharma in its basics corresponds to Jainism. Buddhism, for example,
15 See Haribhadra, Yogabindu v. 2, in Haribhadrayogabharat, op. cit.
16 Yasovijaya, Dharmaparīkṣā (Mumbai: Śrī Andheri Gujarati Jain Samgha, 1986) p.
119.
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