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Jaina Perspective in Philosophy and Religion
doubt.1 Many-sidedness of the Jainas is the true secret of its irreputable perfection. Nayavāda is the touch stone of the dogmatic pronouncement of all one-sided scriptures.2 It is the method of knowing a thing synthetically. Thus, the Philosophy of Anekāntavāda is neither self-contradictory nor vague or indefinite. On the contrary it represents a very sensible view of things in a systematised form. By means of it the seemingly warring ideas and beliefs of different faiths can very well be accommodated and reconciled to each other and then so many clashes would be avoided. Syädyāda and World-tension
Peace is something which the world eagerly wants but which it does not know to secure.4 Peace needs a new civilisation, a new culture and a new philosophy, where there is no narrowness and no partiality. Huxley is correct to a great extent when he says that war exists because people wish it to exist.2 We cannot check violence by remaining violent. But non-violence must preceed non-violence in thought. And here Syádváda gives us help to practice non-violence in thought. Prof R. Prasad also holds that Syadvāda is an extension of Ahirsa in epistemology.5 Unless we resolve our differences, we are bound to face tension. Analysing the ultimate causes of world-tension, we had come to the conclusion that it is ultimately our divergent and conflicting ideologies that come in the way. Politico-socio-economic ideas are interrelated and all of them have definite ideological standpoint. The world is the store-house of great chaos in thought. All the confusion of thought which is prevailing in the world is the
1. Prof A. S. Dhruwa : Syadvāda Maryar. 2. Mohan Lall D. Desai : Naya-karnikā, Introduction. 3. E. Ashirvathem: 'Is Peace Possible' ? Journal of Political
Science. 4. Aldous Huxley : Ends of Means, p. 94. 5. Prof. R. Prasad : Oral discussion.
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