Jain Journal 2010 07

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

Page 24

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE JAINA THEORY OF ANEKĀNTA Anupam Jash*
The theory of anekanta is the distinguishing characteristic of the Jaina philosophy and religion. Harisatya Bhattacharyya says, it is 'a unique doctrine of the Jaina philosophy and it is its original contribution to the course of the world thought'.' According to Jaina anekāntavāda, reality is never absolute, self-centered or abstract but is always many-sided in accordance with the plurality of its relationships to the manifold other real's. It is one and many, eternal and evanescent, general and particular, immutable and changing, real and phenomenal and so on. Always the abode of apparently opposite features all harmonized into a concrete whole. This is the essence of anekātavāda and this is the spirit of the Jaina philosophy. The attitude of the anekantavāda towards the other system of philosophy is that befits above nature. An object is anekānta of possessed of any aspects, each of which expresses only a partial aspects of the object. None of the seven predications of the anekantavāda is thus either absolutely correct of absolutely wrong. Each is correct in its own way and each is wrong as every partial view of an object is wrong. The Jainas do not contend that the theories of the other systems of philosophy are wholly wrong. They hold that each of those theories has admittedly a rational basis and is acceptable to some extent. The Jaina thinkers point out that the theories of the other schools of philosophy being but partial views of the comprehensive reality, are naturally at variance with each other; and that they would find their final reconciliation in the anekāntavāda. In short, following Harisatya Bhattacharyya2, we may say that, 'the Jainas would not object to the admissibility of any
Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Bankura Christian College