Lessons of Ahimsa and Anekanta for Contemporary Life

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

Page 108

Paul Dundas, "Beyond Anekāntavāda"
cannot as an institutionalised and supposedly nonviolent religion, participate in this "general religion” because it claims an independent source of authority which only the jinas can have. Similarly, there can be no question of Jainism, which is the origin of all philosophical standpoints, incorporating morally inappropriate teachings such as Vedic injunctions about sacrificial killing. Jainism can be the source of all intellectual views only in the sense that it makes clear what its own teachings are and what are the teachings of others.
What I have been drawing attention to is a Jain argument not couched in terms of anekāntavāda, possibly unparalleled in Indian thought up to this time, which concentrates on the qualities and the validity of praising upright individuals, even if they belong to a different and manifestly false religious path. As discussed in this paper, there is one side of this argument, as represented by Dharmasāgara, which is unwilling to acknowledge the possibility of mitigating qualities in non-Jains and Jain sectarians. Yaśovijaya, on the other hand, is more open to the positive qualities of non-Jains, no doubt as befits an individual who himself attempted in practical terms to smooth over sectarian differences within the Śvetāmbara community. Yet in his inclusivism Yaśovijaya never abandons a sense of the superiority of Jainism and can thus be seen to be applying the same sort of ranking perspective as found in Hinduism. It is Yaśovijaya's image of Jainism which has become the dominant one today.!?
"A full treatment of this subject will appear in my forthcoming study, Sudharman's Heirs: History, Scripture and Controversy in a Medieval Jain Sect.
For Private & Propnal Use Only