Nyayavatara and Nayakarnika

Author(s): Siddhasena Divakar, Vinayvijay, A N Upadhye
Publisher: Jain Sahitya Vikas Mandal

Page 317

206
Naya-karņikā
without the Anekānta Logic. Obviously, the reason of this is that this Logic is that which guarantees our capacity to know and provides us with criteria by which we should be able to test our knowledge. In one word, it may be called the ‘method of philosophy, or that instrument of thought by which tattva-jñāna or philosophy is polished (samsksta). It bears therefore the all-comprehending sense that 'logic' is invested with in Hegel. It is in Jainism what the science of ideas is in Plato or the Metaphysics in Aristotle.”
Coming to the place of Nayas in Jainism, it is to be observed that the most prominent feature of its philosophy is the quality of many-sidedness, the anekānta-vāda. If the reader has followed me thus far, he will have no difficulty in following me still further when I say that all one-sided systems of Thought are liable to error and inaccuracy because of their very one-sidedness. There are more aspects than one of each and everyihing in nature; and it is obvious that the system which deals, not with all such sides, but with only one of them, can have absolutely no claim to perfection or comprehensiveness of knowledge. Jainism avoids this one-sidedness of knowledge, and is enabled by the many-sidedness of its philosophy to deal effectively with all the moot points in their entirety. With the aid of its Anekānta method, it effectually disposes of all those hard problems of theology and metaphysics which have proved a fruitful source of error and dispute to the followers of all non-Jaina religions in the world.
This many-sidedness of the Jaina philosophy is the true secret of its irrefutable perfection, though modern Orientalists have hitherto only discovered it