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PHILOSOPHY OF SOUL
TWO TRAVELLERS
In olden days, when robbers raided a town valorous men saved the people of that town at the cost of their lives. It so happened in a town that a brave man lost his life fighting against the robbers. To memorise the martyr, the people of the town erected a statue on the outskirts of the village. A sword and a shield were placed in two hands of the statue. One side of the shield was gilded with gold and the other side with silver.
One day two travellers arrived there riding from opposite directions. Having seen the statue one of them said: "I pay my homages to this great man who sacrificed his life for the cause of others". The other traveller replied: "Very few people value heroic deeds. I extend my compliments to the people of this town who erected a statue in honour of the martyr". The first traveller said: “This statue is indeed very handsome".
The other traveller said: "The shield and the sword in the hand of the statue are much better than the statue. The shield gilded with gold is finest of all”.
The first traveller said: "What rot you talk! The shield is coated with silver. The second traveller retorted: "I say what I can see with my real eyes. Let the blind man say what he likes".
The first traveller retorted : "Oh, you fool, you call me blind! This is sheer foolishness to call this shield gilded with gold. This is coated with silver."
Both of them contesting came to fists and then to blows but just then some prudent man of the town arrived and said: "please exchange your position of standing and you will know the fact,
Jain scriptures regard absolute theories as spurious and false while relative theories as true. The notion that the shield was only golden is an absolute notion as it disregards other aspect. Similarly notion that the shield is silver is also absolute because in that case also other aspect is neglected. If on the contrary it is stated that a shield is golden as well as silver then such statement is true because here other aspects are relatively given proper justice.
If one desires to study the secret of comparative or relative theory then one should study typical jain doctrine of relativity (syādvād).
