Central Philosophy of Jainism Anekanta Vada

Author(s): Bimal Krishna Matilal, Nagin J Shah, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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The Central Philosophy of Jainism
such as one about after-life or about the soul by a direct “Yes” or a direct “No”. He would rather try to analyse (cf. vibhāga) the questions and its various presuppositions and distinguish (also vibhāga) between its different interpretations. And following this method of analysis and differentiation, the method of breaking up' (vibhajya) the whole into its component parts, one seeks a satisfactory answer to such avyākata questions. Sometimes such a question may be resolved into a number of separate questions answers to which should be sought separately. (That explains why the Buddha remained silent when a 'compounded' question was put to him directly.) Sometimes, the questions may dissolve itself in the face of an 'analysis' to which it would be subjected. In the latter case, the questions can thus be identified as a pseudo-question. In fact, this latter one was the method the Buddha seemed to have followed in most of his dialogues. But only about the four noble truths, suffering, its origin, its cessation and the way, the Buddha seemed to have made categorical assertions. For according to him, these were the most useful and most pertinent matters for the suffering humanity.
If the above is a reasonably clear and correct interpretation of vibhajya-vāda, then we can translate it as 'the method of analysis and differentiation'. Another sense, slightly different from the above, is found in the Abhidharmakośa-bhāsya. Suppose a question is asked where the subject-term is universally quantified, such as “Are all men good?” or “Do all dharmas exist in relation to past, present and future ?” Here it would be somewhat misleading if we gave a direct answer “Yes" or "No". But using the vibhajya method one could answer “Some are good while others are not" or "Some dharmas exist while others do not."
Thus, in the Abhidharmakośa-bhāsaya, Vasubandhu says:
“Those who say that everything exists, past, present and future, are called the Sarvāsti-vādins. But there are those who say that only certain things exist, viz., the present karma as well as the past karma which has not yet given its result, and other things, such as the future karma as well as the past karma which has generated already its result, do not exist. They are called
vibhajya-vădins.” 23 One may note that while the contradictory of a universal proposition, “Alls is p" is “Some s is not p" (viz., in Aristotle's square of opposition, the contradictory of an A-proposition is an O-proposition 24), the direct negative answer “No” to the question “Is all s p ?” will be at best ambiguous. For, this “No” might be interpreted in ordinary language as a reply that no s is p. Besides, this negative answer does