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ANEKANTAVADA-SYADVADA
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what they were some centuries before. The contribution of Syādvāda and Relativity to the ultimate outlook on life and its problems, taking into consideration the conditions under which and the age in which they are propounded is almost the same. 28 Syādvāda establishes a perfect harmony between apparently discordant concepts. It is of great importance in the field of philosophy as a science of understanding and synthesising reality. It stands for cosmopolitanism of thought and 'intellectual tolerance for which Jainism has eminently stood for the last two thousand years or more. 29
This doctrine has however been subjected to much criticism. Some have called it a doctrine of uncertainty while others have called it a variety of scepticism; some others say that it is beset with contradictions. These views seem to be misconceived. They seem to apply the doctrine to mere abstract concepts when in fact it is based upon the fundamental characteristics of substance to show that "reality has something which is relatively permanant and yet relatively changing."
According to Syādvāda, each modal truth is valid so for as it goes and all the seven points cover the full range of reality. Each view-point is distinct but yet when all are considered cumulatively, they achieve a comprehensive synthesis. The criticism that it is a sceptical doctrine is belied from the fact that its object is to show by an examination of all aspects of reality that real knowledge is attainable. Reality partakes of being and non-being as its constituent elements. It has being in respect of its own nature and non-being in respect of the nature of another. 30 In fact, this is the basic doctrine of Jainism. Every philosophical doctrine of any creed or religion must be examined in the light of its basic doctrines and not in isolation. According to Jacobi, it is a happy way leading out of the maze of Ajnānavāda. Though Dr. S. Radhakrishnan is a hard critic of the doctrine, he says “The Jains admit that a thing cannot have a self-contradictory attributes at the same time and in the same sense. All that they is that everything is of complex nature and identity in difference. The real comprehends and reconciles differences in itself. Attributes
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