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ANEKĀNTAVĀDA
THE THEORY OF MANIFOLDNESS
Jainism has made some original contributions in the field of logic and epistemology which have greatly enriched the world-philosophy. The unique feature of Jaina epistemology is its theory of mainfoldness or 'indetermination'-Anekāntavāda, the two wings of which are Syādvāda and Nayavāda—the doctrine of possibility and the doctrine of standpoints respectively.
The cardinal principle of Jaina theory of knowledge is its through-going realism. Jainims is pluralistic realism. It accepts the independent reality of the external world apart from mind. It believes, as against agnosticism, that every substance is knowable but at the same time reality is manyfaced. The anekānta view represents a coherent picture of reality by taking into account all possible viewpoints. It rightly emphasises that "there is not only diversity but that real is equally diversified". In a sense it presupposes-the metaphysical theory of reality-the theory of identity-indifference which refutes idealistic concept of concrete universals and which declares the objectivity of material
