Bhagavana Mahavira and his Relevance in Modern Times

Author(s): Narendra Bhanavat, Prem Suman Jain, V P Bhatt
Publisher: Akhil Bharat Varshiya Sadhumargi Jain Sangh

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Jainism and Modern Age
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civilization and culture, all intellectual activity and even human commerce would lose its meaning, if man is to eternally doubt the other and believe that law of the jungle alone would prevail. This is too pessimistic and rigid a view of life, however great the minds like Spengler or Iqbal or even Sartre may believe in it. Life's gates have not the motto engraved on it in an iron mould 'No exit'.
or
Tumhāri Tehzib apne hāthon se khudkushi karegi! Jo shākhe-nazuk pe ăshianā banegā nā-pāyedār hogā !!
(Your civilization, (O West) will commit suicide by your own hands! The nest built on a very weak twig will be without foundation !!-Iqbal).
With such a philosophy a kind of will to power, a clarioncall to convert the world to Aryans (Krinvantu Vishvam Āryam) a race-ego can be fanned where people with a 'Khudi' will consider themselves greater than God (Khudā), Holy wars can be fought for recapturing Holy Land, but man's basic moral stature would not be advanced by a millimetre. Therefore, Mahāvīra's emphasis on Ahimsā still serves as a beacon-light. Syadvada or Anekanta (Logic of Probability and Relativism) :
The second great contribution of Mahāvira to human intellect is the logic of probability. In the Aristotlean scheme of things all trouble strated with A and non-A, as Erich From aptly points out in his “Art of Loving". There is always a third possibility, the hoary wisdom of the East, pointed out. Lao-Tse told through parables that it depends on how you look at things; there is no final judgement on human behaviour and choices. The leeway or freedom given to man highlighted by many a philosophers in the east. The Iśavasyaopanişad raised the query : “Those who go after Sambhūti are going to blind darkness; those who run after a-sambhuti are running after a greater blindness". Different philosophers, from Sankara to Acārya Vinobā Bhāve have given different interpretations of these terms. But the Jain logician introduced a very important category of what Vahinger would have called "The Philosophy of As If' (Syād). This relativity of knowledge and perception, of cognition and even volition is accepted by modern logicians in the West, even existentialist psychologists and anthropology-based histriographers.