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clearly opines, "one who praises one's own view-point and discards other's view as a false one and thus, distorts the truth will remain confined to the cycle of birth and death."
It follows that Mahāvīra preached the uttermost carefulness regarding one's speech. In his opinion speech should be unassaulting as well as true. He warned his disciple monks against making unwarranted categorical assertions or negations. He instructed them to make only a conditional statement (Vibhajjavaya Vagarejja). It is the Vibhujjavāda from which the theory of non-absolutism (Anekāntavāda) emerged. Sūtrakṛtānga, in its first chapter records various contemporary one-sided doctrines regarding the nature of soul and creation of the universe.
Bhagwan Mahāvīra's approach to all these doctrines is non-absolutistic or relative. In every case, whether it was the problem of eternalism (Sasvatavāda) and nihilism (Ucchedavāda) about the soul or that of finiteness and infiniteness of the world or that identity and difference of body and soul or also that of monism and pluralism. Mahāvīra's approach was never absolute but relative. It was firmly maintained in Jaina canons that the nature of reality is complex and multi-dimensional as well as confluence of many self-contradictory attributes, so it can be approached and explained from various angles or view-points. It is believed that Tīrthankara Mahāvīrawhile explaining the reality uttered first sentence as tripod (Tripadi), i.e., Uppannei, Vigamei, Dhuvei Va. Accordingly in Jainism Reality, 'Sat' is defined as possessing origination, decay and permanence (Utpada Vyaya Dhrauvya Yuktam Sat: Tattvārtha, 5.29). This three-fold nature of Reality is the base of the Jaina theory of Non-absolutism. On the one hand, the nature of Reality is complex, i, e. a synthesis of
Jainism and its History 182
| SR No. | 032590 |
| Book Title | Jainism And Its History |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Sagarmal Jain |
| Publisher | Research Foundation for Jainology |
| Publication Year | 2018 |
| Total Pages | 328 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 34 MB |