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 167

104
Multi-dimensional Application of Anekāntavāda
can not be stated together with a single word or sentence and so one quality is highlighted at the cost of the rest. While listening about one quality, which is highlighted one, should not get the impression that others are denied'. In fact this is taken care by the use of the word 'syat'.
In the appendix to the 'Atmakhyātī' -commentary on Samayasāra Acārya Amṛtacandra writes on this principle as follows: "Syadvāda is the uninterrupted prescription of the Arhantas to establish the nature of all objects. According to this, because of their being multifaceted in nature all objects are multifaceted......What is 'that' may not be 'that', What is one may be many, what is existent may be non-existent, what is eternal may be transient. In this manner, the manifestation of two contradictory qualities in an object which imparts to it from its objectivity is Anekānta?
Further the same Acārya Amṛtacandra in his original work Puruṣārthasiddhyupaya has offered solution to this great principle of Anekanta as under:
"I bow to Anekanta' - (the manysided view of Jaina philosophy) which is the root basis of the highest scripture, which dispels the wrong notions about elephant, of persons born blind and which removes the contradictions amongst all those who entertain one sided or limited point of view.
3
The famous parable of six blind persons who went to ascertain the shape and form of an elephant is known to all of us. Each touching one part of the elephant maintained that only his conception was right and the others were wrong. The fact was that each of them had only grasped a portion of the body of the elephant and formed only a partial conception, which though partially, was not the whole truth. Each one of them had a limited but not a perfect knowledge of the elephant as a whole. The man with eyes who could see the whole of the elephant all at once explained to each one of the blind persons that though correctly asserting a part, he was ignorant of the whole truth and thus helped them to understand the whole truth.
The vast majority of philosophers are so very
much engrossed