Golden Steps To Salvation

Author(s): Padmasagarsuri
Publisher: Arunoday Foundation

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bound at the level of Paramārtha and bound at the level of vyavahāra." (Paramartha is the transcendental level and i'yavahāra is the empirical level.)
The central idea of these stanzas is that those philosophers who admit in their philosophies the absence of contradiction among truths emerging from multiple vision, have no moral right to condemn the Anekāntavāda.
Once, a heavy rain was falling. The whole village was washed away. There were floods in the river that flowed near the village. Five frogs sat on a floating piece of wood. The stick was floating over a deep part of the river. The frogs were thus saved from being carried away by the floods. Here is an account of a discussion they had among themselves :
THE FIRST FROG : We are flowing !
THE SECOND FROG : No. We are not flowing. This stick on which we are sitting, is floating.
THE THIRD FROG : You are both wrong! We are not flowing. The stick is not flowing. It is the river that is flowing.
The Fourth Frog : Oh fools! The river is here. It is not flowing. Actually it is the water that is flowing. The stick is floating on the waves of the water and we are taking shelter on that stick. If the water does not flow, the stick does not move and we too do not move.
THE THIRD FROG : Who says that the water is flowing? Is water free to flow on its own accord ? If it is free to flow as it likes to, why does not the water in lakes and seas flow? The water in the river has to flow because the river flows. A river that is dry does not flow but the river in which we find ourselves now is not a dry river. Therefore, my statement that the river flows is right.
The fifth frog was an old one and also an experienced one. It gave a reply which accorded with the Anekāntavāda, "Brothers! From your respective points of view all your statements are true but from the point of view of another they are wrong. The river is flowing; The