Anekantavada

Author(s): Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: Atmanand Jain Sabha

Page 62

25
and activities a thing is endowed with. Philosophy starts with the data of innumerable features inbering in a thing and its business is to find out in what manner these features are connected with the thing. There may, however, be an initial difficulty in the way of philosophy in this form viz., that the features of the object being many, some of which are known, some partially known and some wholly unknown, it may not be possible for one to determine the relationship of those features to their basis i. e. the object. This initial difficulty in the way of the correct knowledge of things is not negligible; it has given rise to various forms of scepticism from time to time in the history of philosophy; and many honest enquirers of truth have at last yielded to despair, that it is after all unattainable.
Rigid scepticism, however, cannot retain permanent hold on philosophical thought; the very conclusion,-that truth is unknownable,-is a discovery of some form of truth itself known and determined. The only way of escaping initial difficulty and making valid knowledge possible would be to single out one of those features which is known and to study it in relation to the object. As regards the remaining other features of the thing, it may be held that they