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138 ) SANMATI-TARKA
[III. 27, 2% the right sort of faith. Because thereby a sense of unity is imposed on disunity. i
Anekānta is a means of right knowledge. As it is used as regards all other things it is used sometimes with reference to itself and thus it makes its own position also quite clear. When it is used with reference to a certain thing it looks at the thing from all possible sides and tries to harmonize all these sides and places them in their right place. It takes a man to the real nature of a thing. Let us take an instance in point and try to show the utility of the doctrine of Anekanta. There are at present many views current with reference to the two fundamental elements in this world namely the Jada and Cetana. Some say that the two are identical or nonidentical ; some say that the two are eternal ; some say that they are both of them epbemeral; or some that they are one or many. Now to harmonise all these views and to assign proper. place to each of the above views is the mission of Anekānta. It creates a harmony among all the warring views and thus gives the right view of every thing. Thus it says that Jada and Cetana are identical from the stand-point of general and are different from the standpoint of particular, So also in the case of eternal and non-eternal, one and many. Thus it creates a harmony between the opposing qualities of identity and difference by assigning a rigbt place to each characteristic.
Now if Anekānta shows all possible sides or characteristics of a thing we have to admit that Anekānta will
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