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SATYA RANJAN BANERJEE:ANEKĀNTAVĀDA AND LANGUAGE
239
permanent'. The qualities are the distinguishing features of a substance and the lack of qualities would lead to intermixture confusion of a substance."
When this definition is applied to soul and matter, the distinguishing features are clear to understand. Soul has the quality of consciousness, while matter has not got it. So, “souls are distinguished from matter by the presence of qualities, such as, knowledge, while matter is distinguished from souls by the presence of form (colour) etc. Without such distinguishing characteristics, there can be no distinction between souls and matter”. So knowledge and consciousness are the qualities always associated with souls, while forms, i.e. colour etc. are associated with matter.'
The Relativity of Knowledge:
The Anekānta teaches us the principle of the relativity of knowledge which is an important contribution to the domain of truth. An example of this partial truth is found in the Udānasūtra of the Pali canon as well as in philosophical treatises of the Jains. This is the story of the 'Parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant' (popularly known as andha-gaja-nyāya). There were certain blind men who experienced an elephant, and when they were asked to describe the elephant, each of them described the elephant in accordance with the experience he had with regard to the limbs of the elephant which he happened to have felt. Each one is right with regard to his experiences of the elephant, but each one's experiences are not the whole truth. The Udānasūtra says
imesu kira sajjanti eke samuna-brāhmaṇā/ viggaha nam vivadamti janā ekānga-dassinoll
Here the ekāngadassino indicaiss those blind men who see only a single limb of the elephant.
This simple story indicates that the truth or the pathways of Reality can be investigated from different angles of vision. This simple story also indicates the manysidedness of Truth, the multiple nature of Reality 1. S. A. Jain, Reality, p. 162.
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