________________
212
THE JAINA GAZETTE
These are the ten qualities of souls, which I have very briefly described. Much can be said about each quality separately, but for fear of lengthening the article I have contented myself with a brief description of them.
A man desirous of obtaining liberation of soul must follow this Das Lakshan Dharm.
THE A. B. C. OF JAINISM.
(Continued from page 188.) Syadvada.
It is the distinctive feature of Jainism to insist upon and to provide for perfect knowledge. Every religion tries to teach man to go beyond the phenomenon. Jainism does the same thing, but with this difference, that like other religions it does not cognise the real from a restricted view point.
For this attainment of perfect knowledge Jainism has a philosophy of its own, and this is known as Syadvada or Anekantavada. To observe a thing in various aspects from different view points is what is meant by Syadvada. Let us take an ordinary example for the understanding of this doctrine.
A man is father to his son, and at the same time son to his father. In the same way he may be an uncle or a maternal uncle to some and nephew to others. A head clerk is an officer to his inferiors and a clerk to his superiors. Similarly when we look at different aspects in a thing we can show that it is permanent from one view point and liable to destruction from the other, and this is Syadvada.
When a pot made of
04
"1
Again to take another illustration: earth gets broken, it is turned into earth. This shows that a pot has two elements in it :-first, the form which is known as pot and secondly the earth. If we take the pot as a whole it is liable to destruction but the earth of which it is made is Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
