Gandhi Before Gandhi

Author(s): Bipin Doshi, Priti Shah
Publisher: Jain Academy Educational Research Center Promotion Trust Mumbai

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GANDHI BEFORE GANDHI
Theory of Anekant-Reality is multifaceted,
considered as existing everywhere at all times, in all ways, and in form of everything. It may exist in one place and not in another at one time. It is not meant by these modes that there is no certainty or that we have to deal with probabilities only as some scholars have thought. Even the great Vedantist Sankarcharya has possibly erred when he says that the Jains are agnostics. All in all, the fact that is implied is that every assertion which is true is true only under certain conditions of substance, space, time etc.
This is the great merit of the Jain Philosophy, that while other philosophies make absolute assertions, the Jains looks at things from all standpoints and adapt itself like a mighty ocean in which the sectarian rivers merge themselves, All realities are multifaceted and they also use the word Syatvad
denoting that verbal expression always have limitations of saying the whole truth, though fully understood by consciousness
Jain philosophy, therefore, is not the doctrine of illusion, or of emanation, or of creation. It is rather the doctrine that teaches the multiplicity of various properties in a thing. Hence, the affirmation of only one property would be true so far as one side of the question is concerned; but it becomes false when it rejects other sides-implying thereby that the very existence of that particular side depends on the existence of other sides. Mentioning one side of reality without denying other sides is also termed as Nayoad.
Reality can be expressed in many ways. 1) You can affirm existence of a thing from one point of view, 2) Deny it from another and 3)Affirm both existence and non-existence with reference to it at different times, affirming both existence and nonexistence at the same time from the same point of view, you must say that the thing 4) Cannot be spoken of or expressed similarly. Under certain circumstances the 5) Affirmation of existence is not possible, 6) Of non-existence and 7) Also of both. What is meant by these seven modes is "Saptabhangi" that a thing should not be
For instance, the universe is eternal as well as non-eternal. If the manifestation or modifications and activities are left out of consideration, what remains of the universe is eternal. If merely those modifications, etc., are taken into consideration the universe is non-eternal. That is the only way of coming to a correct understanding and definite knowledge. The doctrine of the Jains known as Syadvada or Anekant-vada, is affirmed as read, in the words of a writer in America -
"It is competent to descend into the utmost minuteness of metaphysics and to settle all the vexed questions of abstruse speculation by a positive method (not merely asserting na iti, na iti. not so, not so) -to settle at any
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