Mahavira His Life and Teachings

Author(s): Bimla Charn Law
Publisher: Luzac and Co UK

Page 79

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MAHĀVĪRA: HIS LIFE AND TEACHINGS
eternal or not eternal, according to the argumentation (of others)
From these alternatives you cannot arrive at truth; from these alternatives you are certainly led to error.'
Similarly, 'One should not say that there will be an end of beings who (know and) teach the truth, nor that all beings are not alike, nor that they shall be in (perpetual) bondage, or (that the prophets are eternal)'
Thus the main points of Jainism as taught by its founder and interpreted by its later exponents may be envisaged. Here our immediate task is to see what light may be actually thrown on those points from the text of the Angas considered in the light of the evidence of the Pāli Nikayas
1. Syādvāda. This consists of certain nayas which, according to Sir R G. Bhandarkar, are points of view or principles with reference to which certain judgments are arrived at or arrangements made '2 The number of nayas came to be finally fixed as seven, while the canonical texts are reticent about their number. The term syādvāda itself is met with in the Sūtrakrtānga
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1 Sūtrakrtänga, II, 5, Jaina-Sutras, II, pp. 405-409 2 Bhandarkar, Report, p 112