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INTRODUCTION
Jainism is one of the important systems of Indian philosophy and Anekāntavāda is regarded by scholars as the central philosophy of Jainism. Anekantavāda is a theory of manysidedness of reality and truth. It presupposes the theory of standpoints or partial truths (nayavāda). It investigates how each of the views contains some truth. As a result, it arrives at the conclusion that different systems of philosophies are partially true, that none of them is wholly true, and if each of them would see things from the opponent's viewpoint as well as from its own, there would be perfect harmony all round. The theory is so important and interesting that we have decided to study an important Sanskrit text neatly dealing with it - the text neither too intricate nor too heavy. Such a text we found in Samantabhadra's Aptamīmāmsā. Before we translate and expound it, we would like to say something more about Anekāntavāda. Nayavada and Anekäntaväda
According to Jaina philosophy a real thing has infinite characters (anantadharmātmaka), implying thereby that it has even opposite characters. A real thing is many-sided (anekantātmaka). Again, Jaina thinkers maintain that both the substance and mode constitute the nature of a real thing'; and further they relate permanence to substance and origination and destruction to modes. Therefore, a real thing has two opposite characters - permanence and change?. Again, they contend that a real thing is constituted of general features and unique features. Hence it has two opposite characters - universality and particularity, or similarity and dissimilarity, or the One and the Many. Thus, ontologically a real thing is a veritable confluence of opposites.
A real thing is not merely a mixture of the opposites. It is not a mixture of substance and mode but something sui generis (jätyantara). Substance and mode are so blended as to present a real thing sui generis which is, therefore, not vitiated by the defects of the two taken singly and separately; at the same time they are never found outside a real thing, nor one without the other. Similar is the case with universal and particular of a real thing. Thus a real thing is a unique synthesis of opposites.
1. dravyaparyayatma arthaḥ.../ Akalankagranthatraya, p. 3.
2. utpadavyayadhrauvyayuktam sat / Tattvärthasūtra V. 30.
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3. ayam arthaḥ- na dravyarüpam na paryayarūpaṁ nobhayarūpaṁ vastu. yena tattatpakṣabhavi doṣaḥ syat, kintu sthityutpädavyayäumakam Sabalan jatyantaram eva vastu / Pramāṇamimämsä, Ed. Pt. Sukhlalji Sanghavi. Singhi Jain Granthamālā, p. 29.
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