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CRITICAL ESTIMATE OF ANEKĀNTAVĀDA
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be denied. Jainas do not assert absolute identity of being and non-being but only state their relation to the same subject from different standpoints. Sankara totally omits the consideration of the significance of the word 'syat'. Therefore, it is clear that the ridicule to which Sankara has subjected it is completely unjustified.
2. Another popular misconception regarding the theory is it is the doctrine of doubts. It is said that Jaina theory of Syādvāda makes knowledge undetermined and indefinte. To attribute contradictory features to an object would lead to doubt and indefiniteness. Critics point out the Anekāntavāda leads one nowhere and consists in vague and indefinite doubt. It is considered as a variety of scepticism.
The objection is answered by saying that the different contexts necessitate attributing opposing features to an object. Therefore, we are justified in attributing contradictory features to an object. Therefore, we are justified in attributing contradictory features to an object. This attribution does not render knowledge of that object uncertain but on the contrary, omission of it would make it so. Syādvāda is not the doctrine of doubt, but is one which eliminates all doubts. The critics fail to realize the true significance of the word 'syat'. Doctrine of Syādvāda needs to be considered in a wider perspective. Since things change in spite of retaining their identity, their truth-values also chabge. But the doctrine of the change does not amount to scepticism or doctrine of relativity in the sense of subjectivism. Jaina logic seems to amount to the view that truth-value of a proposition changes not because our criterion of truth changes. "Since things change, the truths we have discovered will have to undergo change too. For we shall have to rediscover the truths about the changed thing although
