Book Title: Anekantajay patakakhyam Prakaranam Part 2
Author(s): Haribhadrasuri, Munichandrasuri
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra
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INTRODUCTION
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place in the Jaina canon etc.' It is possible for some mean. minded scholars to misrepresent a sound theory of their opponents to maintain their hold over their followers, This may have made the confusion worst confounded so far as this anekāntavāda is concerned.
i Anekāntavāda, not scepticism--Anekāntavāda has syadvada as its synonym. The word "syāt' is here an indeclinables, and it means 'somehow'. To translate it as 'may be' is therefore wrong. So those who have done so have misunderstood it, and that is why they have been inclined to consider this Jaina theory of anekāntavada as sceptical and to confound it with the view of the Greek sceptic Pyrrho ( 365 B. C.?-270. B. C.?) who recommends the qualification of every judgment with & phrase like 'may be. But it should be borne in mind that an exponent or a follower of anekāntaväda is not a sceptic. It is not the uncertainty of a judgment, but its conditional or relative character, that is expressed by the addition of the qualifying particle "syat' (meaning 'somehow'). Subject to the conditions or the universe of discourses under which
1 Prof. Adhikari of the Hindu University (Benares observes :"It (Syad vada) is this intellectual attitude of impartiality without which no scientific or philosophical researches can be successful that the syadváda stands for. Nothing has been so much misunderstood and misrepresented in Jainism as the tenet for which the word stands. Even the learned Sankarácărya is not free from the charge of injustice that he has done to this doctrine. Syädväda omphasizes the fact that no single view of the Universe or of any part of it would be complete by itself. There will always remain the possibilities of viewing it from other stand-points which have as much claim
to validity as the former." 2 Ag an indeclinable it has several other meanings: praise, existence,
doubt, question, certainty, dispute and reflection as can be seen from the following lines of Abhayatilaka Gani's com, (p.5) on Duyāśrayakävya (1, 2):
"स्यादित्यसक्षातोर्यत्प्रत्ययान्तस्य प्रतिरूपको विधिविचारणास्तित्वविवादानेकान्तसंशयाद्यर्थवृत्तिरन्ययः । अत्र तु भीमकान्तेति विशेषणेनानेकान्तस्यैव साध्यत्वादनेकान्तवृत्तियते । तस्य तत्पूर्वको वा वादः स्याद्वादो नित्यत्वानित्यत्वाधनेकधर्मशदलैकवस्त्वभ्युपगमरूपः श्रीमदाहंतप्रधान.
प्रासादचूलावलम्बिप्रलम्बोद्दण्डपाण्डुरपताकायमानोऽनेकान्तवादः". 3 "The universe of discourse is constituted by different factors like
space, time, degree, quality, etc., which are left unmentioned partly because they are obvious and partly because they are too many to be
