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The Path of Arhat: A Religious Democracy
on the manyfold nature of reality, i. c., Anekanta." The expression 'Anekanta' is made of two words, 'Aneka' means manyfold and 'Anta' means Aspect. For everything has many aspects, so any absolute judgement about it is not the correct approach. Syadvada is nothing but the relative linguistic expression. As Dasgupta1 explains:
"This (Syad asti) will indicate that the affirmation is only relative, made somehow, from some point of view and under some reservations and not in any sense absolute. There is no judgement which is absolutely true, and no judgement which is absolutely false. All judgements are true in some sense and false in another."
We observe that the process of creation, maintenance and destruction is constantly going on around us in this universe. On the study of this process the Jaina seers concluded by applying the doctrine of Syadvada that every object is permanent as well as transitory. To a layman, such a statement would atonce appear to be contradictory as a thing cannot be permanent and at the same time transitory. In fact such a criticism is levelled against Jainism by great Vedantists like Sankara and Ramanuja. The criticism is, however, based on the incorrect presumption that these apparently contradictory statements are made with reference to the same aspect and in the same sense and time. Since reality is one and permanent as well as multi-fold and ever changing, when the Jainas refer to the attribute of permanence, they are aspecting the substratum which remains constant, and when they refer to the attribute of transitoriness, they are aspecting the changing modes of the substratum. They contend that if you want to have a proper judgement about a thing, you have to bear in mind the nature of substratum as well as of its changing modes. In other words you have to bear in mind that the object which you perceive has the quality of permanence so far as its substratum is concerned and that of transitoriness so far as its chan
1. Dasgupta, S. N. History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. I, p. 179.
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