Multidimensional Application of Anekantavada

SR No.: 014009
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Sagarmal Jain, Shreeprakash Pandey, Bhagchandra Jain Bhaskar
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith
Publication Year: 1999
Total Pages: 552
Language: English, Hindi
Classification: Seminar & Articles
File Size: 9 MB

Page 156

Jaina Relativism(Anekāntavāda) and Theory of Relativity
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supposed to have developed from contemporary reductionistic trends in which description of reality or an issue could be made on the basis of simultaneous correspondence between contradictory attributes by separation or division in parts of an issue. Mahāvīra tried to resolve many complex philosophical problem of the day by this method. The reductionist method has been later converted into a wider holist method involving aspectal or partial truth of opposites and termed as Anekāntavāda. This represents a harmonizer human mind and aims at unification of contradictions. Anekāntavāda is a philosophy which is applied through a method termed as Syādvādaor Saptabharigi(relativism or seven-foldedness.)
The theory of Anekāntavāda is applied through various predications in respect of an object or knowable. Sthānārga mentions two-fold predications of about 16 contradictory pairs. Nāsadiya Sukta of Rgveda, Mändukyopanişad and other Indian philosophical systems mention two-fold predications for quite a number of philosophical issues and went up to three representing(i) Existence or positivity with respect to self. (ii) Non-existence or negativity with respect to not-self (iii) Indescribable (like non-both) (i) & (ii)
To these three, the fourth was added later in terms of (iv) Existence-cum-non-existence (both (i) and (ii). The Canons follow this order of predication. However, the age of logic modified not only this order replacing (iii) by (iv) but increased the number of predications from four to seven, thus getting the name of Saptabhangi principle. Thus, it is in the fifth century AD that the current form of Anekāntavāda system was well established after about 1000 years after Mahāvīra. It is this form which was followed by later Jain scholars for defending Jaina principles through debates and treatises. However, it must be added that the theory had its origin on philosophical issues (i.e mostly non-observable entities) but it was extended to many physical phenomena in the age of logic. Now its philosophy has been extended to other realistic experimental issues in explaining them properly. Basic Postulates of Anekāntavāda
The basic postulates of Anekāntavāda may be summed up as