Book Title: Facets of Jain Philosophy Religion and Culture
Author(s): Shreechand Rampuriya, Ashwini Kumar, T M Dak, Anil Dutt Mishra
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
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86 Anekantavāda and Syādvāda
concrete universal, the theory of identity-in-difference, the metaphysical presupposition of anekāntavāda, animating all the spheres of Jaina philosophical thinking, recognises the objectivity of the material universe. The objectivity of the universe signifies the fact that the universe is independent of the mind of consciousness. This independence, or the duality of consciousness and the material universe, necessarily presupposes the principle of distinction, which exerts a compulsive force until the logical goal of this principle is reached in the form of the development of the Jaina concepts of reality and knowledge into the comprehensive scheme of anekānta realism. In other words, once the initial step is taken, namely the recognition of the principle of distinction as being at the root of the duality of the mind and the world, there is no stopping short of working out, to their logical conclusion, the consequences of the operation of the principle of distinction. The claim that anekäntaväda is the most consistent form of realism lies in the fact that Jainism has allowed the principle of distinction to run its full course until it reaches its logical terminus, the theory of manifoldness of reality and knowledge.
The first significant step to be taken, once the operative principle of distinction is accepted, is the postulation of a multiplicity of ultimate reals constituting the cosmos. The material or the objective world is constituted, according to Jaina ontology, by five ultimate reals : viz., matter (pudgala) space (ākāśa), time (kāla), the medium of motion (dharma) and the medium of rest (adharma); and the mental or the subjective world consists of an infinity of independent minds, or spirits, in their conditioned or free existence. An analysis, on the physical as well as on the mental side, reveals, therefore, a multiple or pluralistic universe.
The other step, which along with the corollary to be referred to a little later in this chapter, fulfils the purpose of the ubiquitously operative principle of distinction, and which imparts the name of 'anekāntavāda', after which the entire Jaina metaphysics is often known, is the postulation of manifoldness, or inherent complexity, within each of the reals in the universe. In other words, reality, according to Jainism, is not merely multiple but each real, in its turn, is manifold or complex to its core. Reality is thus a complex web of manyness (aneka) and manifoldness (anekānta). The central thesis of the Jaina is, according to a modern critic, that there is not only diversity but each real is
