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Anekantavada, the doctrine of pluralism / multiplicity of viewpoints, is one of the unique contributions of Jains to Indian thought and logic as discussed earlier.
For Jain thinkers, reality is thus constituted of apparent contradictions and hence its one-dimensional exposition is not possible. This can be extended to say that reality is an inalienable complex of permanence and change, existence and nonexistence, oneness and many-ness, universality and particularity etc. Because of this complexity reality is styled as with many folds or Anekantika. It is thus multidimensional possessing antagonistic dimensions of permanence and change, one and many etc. These antagonistic dimensions are infinite in number, of which we know only a few of them at any point of time. The Jains advocate change to be as much ontologically real as permanence. Prominent Jain scholars have accordingly defined it in many ways.'
To treat a state or mode (me as grandfather or husband only; crown or necklace only) or thought as absolute or inclusive is absolutism and to treat the same as relative and incomplete is non-absolutism. In other words we can say that first view is synthetic i.e. substance is losing all its modes and when our approach is analytical the second viewpoint starts looking at all modes in a relative term. Hence to determine real, one should have non-absolutistic approach i.e. use both synthetic and analytical approaches at least. Hence, Anekanta itself can be said to have two basic viewpoints namely absolute to determine the substance and non-absolute to determine the relations / modes.
Anekantavada thus gives us two types of TRUTH namely absolute and relative and their existence simultaneously. The Absolute Truth (or the permanence aspect of the reality with origin destruction and permanence) is not a subject for different views by observers. This stays always in all the modes forming this universe singly and jointly. Absolute Truth does not attract any arguments as it is absolutely true. While the relative truth addresses the modes (represented by origin and destruction aspects of reality) is continuously evolving and hence is
Pg.250 Gandhi & Jainism
