Jainism Some Essays

Author(s): A S Gopani
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 66

Hindu Religion and Jaina Religion
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system of Mahāvira. this synthetical approach to the problems is evident at every stage. It is needless to dwell any longer on this point as it has been referred to very often. However, a necessity cannot be brushed aside to say about how the principle of non-injury occupied the central position of Mahā. vira's approach. The passionate fanaticism which even a donor of many a lac of rupees has for his hopelessly trifling thoughts and opinions happens to be tremendous. Any one who forms opinion about any one else has for its basis some viewpoint or some ideology behind it. Then, it is but natural that he suffers a great shock when some one condemns his opinion without taking into consideration the viewpoint he has kept behind it. When one thoughtlessly gives a shock to the other, he is thereby committing a type of Himsa (injury). Therefore, it is nothing but a mental Ahimsā (non-injury) advocated by Mahāvira when he makes a specific pronouncement that a dectrine of manifold viewpoints should be adopted in the domain of thinking also.
The teachers have given the name of Jainism to the whole lot of misconceived Non-Jain beliefs, but it remains to be seen how this attains the appealation of right type of Jainism. It is the opinion of all the metaphysi. cians and philosophers for opposit view that is wrong and the reason of this is their obstinancy. One philosopher does not understand the viewpoint of the other. He believes that he alone is right. This leads him to disown the standpoint of the other and vice versa. But if a third person and a neutral one at that accepts what is true in both of them, his viewpoint is correct. The belief of person who has accepted the doctrine of Anekānta is correct while that of the person who ignores what is said by the other is incorrect. The belief of such an Anakāntavadin is neither scepticism nor indeterminism por nescience. But it is a doctrine which accepts the truth, having examined all the aspects of the matter. This is therefore not absolutism but non-absolutism. It is not one-sided but it builds up the edifice of his belief from out of the bricks collected from all sets of people. It is not one-eyed; it is manyeyed. Not even that, it is infinite-eyed because it establishes that the thing or matter has mo e than one aspects.
Even in today's politics the concept of co-existence that we find, is rooted in the theory that a correct and comprehensive view of a thing could be had if at all it is looked at or considered from all possible angles.
In all the philosophical systems of the Hindus, Jaina theory of Nonabsolutism is resorted to several times in order to avoid inconsistency or incoherence at the time of formulations. But it is only Jainism, doubtless, that has accepted it as a means to arrive at a total conception of a thing. Partial view of a thing is the result of wrong insistence and it has no place whatsoever in Jainism.