Lessons of Ahimsa and Anekanta for Contemporary Life

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

Page 99

Lessons of Ahimsa and Anekanta for Contemporary Life
pertinent to the theme of this essay, however, is the following question posed to Vijayasena: Do the 363 types of heretic (pakhandika), traditionally established by the time of early medieval Jainism, physically stand outside the samavasaraṇa or remain within it? As a rule, replied Vijayasena, they remain outside but occasionally enter the samavasarana.?
This slightly equivocal judgement appears to indicate a possible tension within Jainism to which I intend to draw attention. The questions central to my inquiry are: What is the status of those who are not formally members of the Jain religion? Can they be in some way accommodated by the Jains? If not, are they fated to stay outside the samavasarana, noses metaphorically pressed against the soteriological window? In other words, to what extent is Jainism tolerant in its approach to other religious traditions?
Based on its philosophy of anekantavāda, Jainism is frequently thought of having an innate sense of tolerance for other religious paths. Such a tolerance is regarded as a reflex of the religion's deep preoccupation with ahimsā. However, concentration on anekantavāda as presenting non-Jain teachings as partial versions of the truth and thus constituting a type of inclusivist sectarian tolerance has tended to deemphasize the extent to which Jainism has also consistently seen itself in exclusivist terms as the one true path. Recent scholarship has confirmed that anekāntavāda functioned in classical times as a technique which could promote the superiority of the Jain analysis of the world over other models of reality. Jainism's apparent inclusivism and tolerance as supposedly resulting from
divine beings sit as a token of the traditional superiority of their gender. See Subhsvijaya Ganin compiled, Vijaysena Sūri's Senapraśna (Bombay: Devacand Lālabhai Series, 1919): 80a.
Senaprašna (Bombay: Devacand
? Ibid. p. 61a.
3 Paul Dundas, The Jains (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 229-33.