Facets of Jain Philosophy Religion and Culture

Author(s): Shreechand Rampuriya, Ashwini Kumar, T M Dak, Anil Dutt Mishra
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

Page 119

102 Anekāntavāda and Syādvāda
introduced in the real will work itself out, through various stages of increasing approximation like duality, plurality and reciprocity towards the anekānta view of reality. The dialectical evolution of these approximations or stages has been already traced out earlier in course of this section. According to the Jaina dialecticians the several schools which do recognise the independent objectivity of the world have inevitably, though often unwittingly, been confronted with the necessity of acknowledging the anekānta view, at least in some aspect of their conception of reality as well as of knowledge. The instances, which, among others include the Mimāmsā, the Sānkhya, and the Vaiseșika schools, have already been mentioned elsewhere. He feels that they all have stopped short of consciously allowing the principle of distinction to reach its logical conclusion in an indeterminate approach to the problem. If the compulsive force of the spirit of anekānta is allowed to have its sway, then, according to him, reality would be infinitely diversified. 36 The optimum point of the restless force of distinction is repiesented in the inexhaustible diversification of every detail in the physical and the mental universe consistenly, of course, with the equally enduring identities in nature. The theory of manifoldness is therefore the story of the gradual unfoldment of the implications of distinction which is at the heart of everything. If this cardinal truth is disproved, then the entire structure of the anekānta philosophy will collapse like a house of cards.
To summarise the entire argument : The essence of realism is the principle of objectivity, independence, or distinction. The alternative to the non-acceptance of this principle in reality is some form of idealism which is generically inadequate and has a tendency towards subjectivism. Acceptance of the intrinsic objectivity of the world marks the starting point of the functioning of distinction whcih progressively develops until the point of culmination is reached in the fact of the indeterminate and manifold nature of reality. It is in the logical necessity of the development from the initial simple state of distinction to that of infinite diversification of everything real, physical or mental, that the justification of the claim of Anekāntavāda as the most consistent form of realism lies.
56. The Vai'sesika comes nearest, paticularly with respect to his atomism, to anekavāda,
but he stops at the level of what may be described as mechanical pluralism, rather than in determinate relativism of the Jainas. Cf. supra, ch. on Arthakriyakaritvam and the Vaisesika's Ubhayavada.