Jain Journal 2004 04

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

Page 43

244
JAIN JOURNAL: VOL-XXXVIII, NO. 4 APRIL. 2004
Mallişeņa (1292 AD.) is the author of the Syādvādamañjarī which is a commentary on Anya-yoga-vyavacchedika-dvātrimsikā of Hemacandra.
In the decadent period of this age we have Maladhārī Rājasekhara (1348 A.D.), Jñānacandra (1358 A.D.) and Gunaratna (1409. A.D.)
Akalankadeva (8th A.D.) in his Nyāyaviniscaya defines anekānta thus:
upayogau śrutasya dvau syādvāda-naya-samjñitau/
syādvādaḥ sakalādeso nayo vikala-sankayāll) anatātmakārtha-kathanaṁ syādvādaḥ. yathā jīvaḥ pudgalah dharmo'dharma akāśah kāla iti. tatra jivo inana-darsana-virya sukhair asādharanaih amurttatvasankhyāta-pradeśatva-suksmatvaiḥ sādhāraņasādhāranain sādhārana sattva-prameyatvā' gurulaghutva-dharmatva-gunitvādibhih sādhāranaih anekāntaḥ. tasya jīvasyādeśāt pramānam syādvādaḥ.
In a very modern book entitled Jaina-siddhānta-dipikā of Gaņādhipati Tulsi, anekānta is defined in a lucid way as
samanya-visesa-sad-asan-nityānitya-vācvāvācvādyanekāntātmakam (X. 29)
i.e., “(The cognizable object is) universal-cum-particular, existent-cum-nonexistent, eternal-cum-noneternal, expressible-cumnonexpressible and is thus indeterminate (in terms of formal contradiction)."
Satkari Mukherji and Nathmal Tantia in their notes (pp 188189) have explained the sūtra thus.
“Anekānta means not ekānta. Anta literally means end or extreme. Thus ‘being' is one extreme and 'non-being' is the other extreme of predication. This also holds good of eternal and non-eternal, and so on, which are given in formal logic as contradictories. 5. Mahendra Kumar Shastri, Akalanka-grantha-trayam, 1939. p.21.