________________
Anekanta 143
holder with wrong faith (miccha-patipanno) does not follow the right path, while one with right faith (sammā-patipanno) definitely does so. This vibhjyavāda is not essentially different from that of the Jainas.
In the Suttanipata p. 396, we find people stuck to their individual truths or opinions (pacceka-saccesu puthu nivitthā). The Udana, pp. 143-145, gives the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Ten blind persons touch various parts of the elephant and give ten conflicting accounts based on their experience of the ten parts which they happened to come into contact with. Each of them took the part for the whole and as such they were all with their perceptions vitiated and partial (ekangadassino). The parable is suggestive of a definite stage in the evolution of Buddha's thought, which approached too near to the thought pattern of Mahavira to be able to maintain its distinct individual character. The ultimate thought pattern of the Buddha, however, is to be judged by his attitude to the ten or fourteen famous avyakatas (indeterminables) mentioned in Majjhima Nikaya, II, pp. 107-113 and 176-183, and Candrakirtis' Prasannapada, p. 446, Poussin's Edition.
5 (c). The Yoga School : The Yogabhāsya (IV. 33; for the Buddhist counterpart of four kinds of questions, see Digha Nikāya, III, p. 179, and Anguttara Nikāya, II, p. 84) classifies questions under three heads : (i) there are questions which admit of a clear definitive answer (ekānta-vacaniya), (ii) there are questions which are answerable only by division (vibhajya-vacaniya), and (iii) there are questions which are unanswerable (avacaniya). The question 'shall everybody be reborn after death', is vibhajya-vacaniya, that is, answerable by division. The person who has experienced the distinction between spirit and matter will not be born, the others however would take rebirth. The Yoga philosopher here opens for himself the way to the anekanta type of thinking, which, however, he does not pursue any further. The Sankhya-Yoga doctrine of parināma (change) again is essentially a vindication of the concept of anekānta, barring its insistence on the absolute pre-existence of the effect in the cause. The Sankhya-Yoga conception of purusa as an absolutely unchanging entity is of course an exception.
5 (d). The Nyaya School : In the early Nyaya litrature also we see discussions which are representative of the anekānta way of thinking. Nāgārjuna's criticism of the Nyāya categories of pramāna
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
