Book Title: Anekantajay patakakhyam Prakaranam Part 2
Author(s): Haribhadrasuri, Munichandrasuri
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra
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INTRODUCTION
Anekantavāda & Omniscience-Jagadisacandra in his intro. (p. 25) to SM says:
(i) Anekāntavāda differs from omniscience; for the former reveals objects one by one whereas the latter all at once with all their characters.
(ii) The knowledge derived by means of anekantavāda is mediate whereas omniscience is immediate.
(iii) Anekantavāda leads us to relative and partial truth whereas omniscience to absolute and all-comprehensive truth. In support of this he has quoted the following verses from Aptamimāṁsā and referred the reader to Astasati (pp. 275-288):
"atasnia zarur at T ATI क्रमभावि च यज्ज्ञानं स्याद्वादनयसंस्कृतम् ॥ १.१॥ उपेक्षाफलमावस्य शेषस्यादानहानधीः । पूर्व वाऽज्ञाननाशो वा सर्वस्यास्य गोचरे ॥ १.२॥ स्थाद्वादकेवलज्ञाने सर्वतत्त्वप्रकाशने । T:
M ATTE Jaccarelérni a 11 9031/ Every object has infinite characters and our knowledge is finite, imperfect beings as we are. It is only the omniscient beings who realize in a comprehensive way any and every object. So complete or absolute truth is not within the range of ordinary men. It baffles expression and rises above logic. Anekāntavāda is a means to understand this absolute truth inexpresible as it is. I shall conclude this topic by reproducing the views of F. H. Bradley (1846 A, D.-1924 A. D.) regarding truth and reality expressed by him in his Essays on Truth and Reality (pp. 472-473):
"A truth so true that it has no other side, and an error so false that it contains no trath, I have condemned as idols. They are to me po better than the truths wbich are never at all born in time, or again the truths whose life does not pass beyond that which is made and unmade by chance and change. And, just as there is no utter error, so again in the end there can be no mere ideas. Every idea, no matter, how imaginary, qualifies by its contents the Universe, and thus is real; and ideas float never absolutely but always in relation to some limited ground. But these many spheres, owned all by the reality, are one and all in the end abstractions, differing in concreteness and worth, but in no case self-existent. My so-called 'real world' of solid fact like the airy realm and imagination, is but a single subordinate
1 See "Silver Jubilee Volume of Jaina Mahāvira Vidyalaya" (p. 72).
