Jain Journal 2004 01

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 14

VINCENT SEKITAR, S.J.: JAINA PLURAL PERSPECTIVE
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hungry, and the miserable and to offer relief to them out of pity."'29 This could be the reason why a Jain is philanthropic in one's life.
The Ācārāngasūtra 30 advises one to comprehend one's philosophical views through comprehensive study of another one. Hence rationality plays a prominent role in any analysis. Haribhadra3 would say that he would neither favour Mahāvīra, nor be averse to Kapila or other teachers. And he would be committed to the preaching that is truly rational. This makes a Jain truly compassionate and accommodative, while not sacrificing objectivity and rationality.
Dialogue and the Spirit of Anekānta :
The above ideas on religious tolerance imply the faith in the doctrine of pluralism (Anekantavāda).32 The Jains believe that all their spiritual deities, the Tīrthankaras, were full of compassion towards all living beings. Looking on them equally, they had a sense of harmony in themselves and also nurtured the same in their environment. To them, all living beings were endowed with the same basic life-force (Jīva), which sustained life on earth. The spiritual masters knew that life in all forms was never single, and hence were naturally prone to an Anekanta spirit, a spirit of accommodation.
This spirit of anekānta sustained life without doing any harm or damage to the living beings.33 They were sympathetic to note the differences in their nature and function, differences in their existence,
Pa
29. Kundakunda, Pancāstikaya 137, Quoted in A. Chakravarti, trans.
Pancāstikāya of Kundakunda, Bharatiya Jnanapeeth, 1944 30. Acārāngasūtra 5.113, Quoted in Muni Mahendra Kumar, Op. Cit. 31. Haribhadra, Lokatattvanirnaya 38, Quoted in Muni Nathamal, Op. Cit. 32. Anekānta or the doctrine of relative pluralism was originally propounded in
order to strike a balance between two extreme philosophical views, between ‘monism' (the 'being' of the Vedantins) and nihilism' (the becoming' of the Buddhists). The Jains viewed that “all utterances made on something" do not have "an absolute value, but only a relative one and are, therefore, valid only under certain conditions and with certain restriction ...." See Helmuth Von Glasenapp, Jainism --- An Indian Religion of Salvation, Motilal
Banarsidass Pvt. Ltd., Delhi, 1999, p. 170 33. Vincent Sekhar: "Significance of Jain philosophy for preserving life and
environment in Journal of Dharma, January March 2001, Vol. XXVI, No. 1, pp. 57-58