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Appendix - 5
Anekanta and Naya of Adhyatma
The Jain philosophy considers relevant aspects of a thing or event through multiple view points. A popular term in Samskṛta is known as Anekānta which means multiple view points. We very well know that a single picture/blue print of a house drawn by an architect is not sufficient. The architect provides as many pictures as necessary so that a good engineer can understand all the necessary details of the house. A test of the completeness of the set of pictures drawn by the architect and the ability of the engineers can be as follows: A house constructed by a good engineer in city A and that constructed by another engineer in city B on the basis of the same set of blue prints of the house would be the exactly
same.
This example of house can further be employed to highlight another aspect of the Anekanta: A picture of the house from the south may show many windows and another picture of the same house taken from the east may not show even a single window. Thus different pictures of the same house may even appear contradictory. In the same way, in the spiritual world, descritpitons of the path of liberation, soul, Arahanta, etc., require many statements from various points of view. Out of many statements, one may appear to be in contradiction with another. For example, one view point can talk about the birth and death of a Jiva, and another view point may consider the same Jiva as eternal.
Here it is very important to note that if among the multiple views, any view is false then the whole Anekanta description would not be a true Anekänta (Samyak Anekanta), but it would become a false Anekänta (Mithya Anekänta). For example, if among multiple pictures given by a photographer, a picture of an already built house taken from the south shows three windows and if we do not find three windows when we visit that house then the set of pictures given by the photographer would be questionable.
There is a term 'Naya' in Samskṛta for the phrase 'view point'. In general, there can be many (say, infinite) Naya. In scriptures we find many kinds of Naya. For example, Umäsvāmī in TattvärthaSutra (Sütra 1.33) describes seven kinds of Naya. However, when we limit our attention to Adhyatma (spiritual knowledge or the knowledge concerned with soul) then we find two kinds of Naya:
