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principles. The humanity has been fortunate enough that the unique panacea for ailments like mutual distrust, strife, and polemic was invented in the form of Anekāntavāda and Syādvāda. Therefore, it is the need of the time that these two concepts are understood, popularized, and given recognition as universal code of conduct.
ANEKĀNTAVĀDA
Every sentient and non-sentient entity in this universe is a storehouse of innumerable properties and attributes. There are infinite things in this world and each has infinite attributes and infinite variations. In every thing mutually contradictory or opposing attributes also coexist. We have limited knowledge. We cannot perceive a thing in its totality at one particular moment. Knowing just a part of a thing we are filled with the conceit of knowing it in totality and start arguing. This contradiction exists not in the thing but in the opinion or viewpoint of the observer.
Once Gautama Gañadhara asked Bhagavāna Mahāvīra, • “Bhagaväna! Some call living being as permanent others impermanent; some call it existent and others non-existent; some say that soul is destructible and others call it indestructible?” Bhagavāna replied, "Soul as substance is indestructible, what is destructible is its variants or alternative forms. For example water in the sea is not destroyed, the waves get created and destroyed.”
A lady gave a golden bangle to a goldsmith and asked him to make earrings. The goldsmith melted the bangle and made earrings. The bangle was destroyed and the earrings were created but the gold remained the same. In the same way a being is a constant entity. Only its former state or form is destroyed and later state or form is created. The existence of jīva dravya (the entity called soul) is based on this creation, existence, and destruction. Carbon turns into diamond after remaining in the tremendous heat in the womb of earth for millions of years. The atomic structure of diamond and carbon is the same, and that particle form is permanent. The carbon form was destroyed and the diamond form was created. Thus the same three states hold true for non-sentient entity or matter as well.
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