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
Several points may be noted in this connection. First, Jamali was confused and remained silent in the beginning for the question had several ambiguities. Mahāvira boasted that not only he could answer it but also most of his ordinary disciples could. (Was it an oblique reference to the 'silence' of the Buddha when he first tried to avoid answering such questions ?) The questions might have been ambiguous but were not unanswerable.
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Second, in the first four avyakata questions, the subject was "loka". Since it ambiguously means both 'the world' and 'the person', Mahāvira used two separate sets of questions with two different subjects, 'the world' and 'the soul', thus, perhaps foreshadowing the Jaina ontological distinction between the living and the non-living (spirit and matter). Resolution of ambiguities is, as I have already noted, part of the vibhajya method.
Third, and this is more important, Mahavira, unlike the Buddha, did not reject both of the seemingly contradictory predicates ('infinite' and 'finite') but rather accepted both of them and avoided the seeming contradiction by showing (or exposing) the different senses in which these predicates could be used, Thus, it could hardly be regarded as an acceptance of a real contradiction. To use the later day philosophic terminology of the Jainas, the world, from the point of view (naya) of continuity, may be called eternal, but from the point of view of change of its states, it is non-eternal. This probably foreshadowed also the Jaina synthesis of the Buddhist doctrine of universal flux with the Vedanta doctrine of the unchanging Brahman.
Regarding the third and the fourth avyakata questions, Mahavira had the following to say: Bhagavati 2.1.90 (p. 420)
"There has been the following question in your mind, Skandhaka, which you have thought about, considered, deliberated and posed to ask: Is the world finite (with an end), or is it infinite?' This can be explained as follows: I have given instruction about the world, Skandhaka, in four ways: They are: following the point of view of the substance, that of area-measurement, that of time, and that of modifications.
"Now, from the point of view of the substance, the world is one, and therefore, finite (i. e. countable in number). From the point of view of its area-measurement, the world is, again, finite (i. e. its numerical calculation is possible), for its length and breadth are each measured as asaṁkhyāta 10,000,0002 yojanas. (This is following