Lessons of Ahimsa and Anekanta for Contemporary Life

Author(s): Tara Sethia
Publisher: California State Polytechnic University Pomona

Page 104

Paul Dundas, “Beyond Anekāntavăda"
general intellectual tolerance based on the principle of anekantavāda. Instead, I would turn here to an opponent of Dharmasăgara's ideas and one of Jainism's greatest intellectuals, Yasovijaya (1624-88).
Yaśovijaya has become a near talismanic figure for the contemporary Śvetāmbara monastic community and is, in particular, identified with the quality of mădhyasthya or neutrality. A commemorative sign which invokes this can be glimpsed today through the dust and fumes in the old city of Ahmedabad at Yaśovijaya Chauk at the Relief Road end of Ratan Pol where Yaśovijaya lived for many years. Although Yasovijaya's scholarly reach extended over the entire range of Jain literature, his frequent reference to Haribhadra suggests that he considered the latter as his real and only intellectual equivalent in earlier Svetambara tradition, and he saw himself as Haribhadra's successor. It was the Haribhadra's reputation for being influenced only by the logical cogency of doctrines and viewpoints (anekāntavāda) that appears to have shaped Yaśovijaya's irenic but also critical attitude towards other sects and traditions.
Yasovijaya's broad perspective on the status of members of other religious paths was expressed in the Dharmaparīkņā, “An Examination of the Jain Religion," a lengthy Sanskrit autocommentary on 104 Prākrit verses produced in 1669. In this text, in which no serious reference is made to anekāntavāda, Yaśovijaya argues that it is pointless to take a negative stance towards a position found in another soteriological path if it is effectively no different from Jainism. Unquestionably (and Yaśovijaya quotes Haribhadra to this effect) the principled nonJain derives his positive qualities precisely from his loyal adherence to his own scriptural tradition, this being in itself indicative of a morally upright position. The Jain, however, can take a madhyastha position, devoid of partisan passion, because Jainism is universalist in that it combines and encompasses all possible viewpoints. Here, then, at the outset Yaśovijaya's ostensibly irenic approach can also be seen to reflect a view of
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