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

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Anekāntavāda and Phenomenology
171
they are equally unclear and uncertain. As for our sensations and judgements, they do not confirm either truth or falsity. We therefore, should not trust either our sensation or our reasoning but should persist in not holding views (doxa) nor commitments for the one or for the other side. Whatever issue may be at stake, we should say that it has to be: 1. Neither affirmed, 2. Nor denied, 3. Nor both affirmed and denied 4. Nor neither affirmed nor denied.
If we take this attitude, we shall attain first to aphasia or silence, (Sanskrit- maunyam, Pāli- monam, the attitude of Muni) and then to ataraxia (or indifference, Pāli- upekkhă)
There is some analogy to the basic rule of Buddhist logic, catukotikam -applied by Lord Buddha in case of avyaktāni as also. Kant's antinomies later formulated by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason but we are at present, not interested in it..
Pyrrho formulated his scheme of ten tropes as basic criteria of his methods of epoche. We shall take note of them and go to consider their similarity with Jaina alternatives.
The first trope - the difference among living beings concerning joys and sorrows. The conclusion is that equal stimulation do not provoke equal response in our minds. This inconsistency should induce us to refrain from apodictic judgement.
The second, third and forth trope extend the same argument to the structures of bodies, sensations and feelings. The fifth refers to ways of living as regulated by laws and beliefs and indicates the “right way of living”. Trope six to nine deal in broader sense with the objective nature of world constituting relations according to Pyrrho's principle “not rather this than that” and is another version by Pyrrho's formulation of the Jaina principle of Anekänta.
The Jaina Anekāntavāda theory based on the analogous principle "not only one meaning” is explicated in two correlative structures of seven-fold (Saptabhangi) schemes: seven nayas of methodological criteria and “seven modes of truth” according to K.C.