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80: Sramana, Vol 64, No. III, July-Sept. 2013
The first of these doctrines is anekāntavāda(the doctrine of non-one-sidedness). As an ontological doctrine, anekāntavāda argues that all aspects of reality, all existent entities, possess innumerable aspects to them; indeed, any particular thing is multifaceted. Long writes, “This claim stems from the ontological realism that characterizes the Jain position. That is, according to Jain thought, reality is essentially as we perceive it. The apparent contradictions that our perceptions of reality involve-continuity and change, emergence and perishing, permanence and flux, identity and difference- reflect the interdependent, relationally constituted nature of things. Reality is a synthesis of opposites."
Out of anekāntavāda, Jain scholars developed natural correlates in the form of the epistemological (nayavāda) the doctrine of perspectives and the meta-philosophical (syādvāda) the doctrine of conditional assertion. Nayavāda attempts to address the perceived contradictions of the multifaceted nature of reality by articulating that there are multiple perspectives in which an entity is viewed. Syādvāda articulates a formalized logic of seven propositions that tests the truthfulness of an entity, which are: true, not true, both true and not true, inexpressible, inexpressible and true, inexpressible and not true and inexpressible and both true and not true. These two doctrines attempt to reflect the possibilities and the wide-range of perspectives in which reality can be viewed. The cardinal sin, so to speak, of these doctrines the classification of a specific position about what an entity is.
Recently, anekāntavāda has been taken up as the Jain contribution to discussions on religious pluralism. Long intimates that not only do these doctrines "recommend themselves... to those who are committed to religious pluralism due, not only to their own internal consistency, but also to the fact that they allow for a minimal distortion of the claims of the world's religions.”8 I believe it is possible to take look at this in another way, as a space of speculation. What I mean in here is that anekāntavāda, along with nayavāda and syādvāda, give us some room to work with in thinking about how entities interact or are described. While there are definite guide posts of true knowledge, there is a sense of ambiguity. Further more, I think anekāntavāda is the very starting place for any sort of dialogue between Jain and Western philosophy; it acts as the gate in which creative expressions and connections can be made. My challenge, then, is if I ascribe some vitality to matter, would I breach into the realm of "false knowledge?" While it could be entirely possible, I think the beneficial thing about Jain relativity is that enables some sort of flexibility. Materiality in the vital materialism conception of it, in many ways still fits, I think, to ways in which Jains speak of materiality. This entire endeavor is built on a perspective shift. In a perspective, I may be true, but in another I may be false. Understanding matter in Jainism A discussion on matter in Jain philosophy stretches into multiple realms, beginning first and foremost with metaphysics. In Religion and Culture of the Jains, Jyoti Prasad Jain notes, “Jaina metaphysics starts with the scientific axiom 'nothing is destructible', that is, nothing can be created out of nothing, or out of something which does not at all exist in one form or the other.” Within Jain cosmology, something has always existed; for instance, there was never a
