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ANEKĀNTA :
METAPHYSICO - SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE
Anekānta : Metaphysical Perspective
It is incontrovertible that metaphysics deals with the problem of reality. Philosophers have endeavoured to expound the world of phenomena in a consistent manner. For Jaina thinkers, reality is constituted of apparent contradictions. So its one dimensional exposition is not possible. It is an inalienable complex of permanence and change, existence and non-existence, oneness and manyness, universality and particularity etc.' Because of this complexity reality is styled “Anekāntic'. It is thus multidimensional possessing antagonistic dimensions of permanence and change, one and many etc. These antagonistic dimensions are infinite in number, of which we know: only a few of them. Thus the Jaina philosopher differs from all absolutists in their approach to the unfoldment of the inner nature of reality. The Jaina advocates change to be as much ontologically real as permanence. Being implies becoming and vice versa. This conception of reality reminds us of the Greek philosopher Parmenides who regarded “Being' as the sole reality wholly excludent of all becoming, as also of Heraclitus, for whom, permanence being an illusion, “Becoming' or perpetual change constitutes the very life of the universe. It also makes us reminiscent, of the Buddhist philosophy of universal flux and of the unchanging, static, permanent absolute of Vedānta. But all these point to the onesided approach to reality. It may be said that “if the Upanişadic thinkers found the immutable reality behind the world of phenomena and plurality, and the Buddha denounced
Jaina Mysticism and other essays
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