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application. anekāntavāda is a philosophy of life, praxis. To accept it is to live it. I have applied the theory in a conflict situation and see how anekāntavāda deals with it. Religious conflicts have been an affliction to civilized life since the time of the Rgveda. But we have survived. Our long tradition of rationality and a will to live a good life have been the secret of our survival, anekantavāda as a theory and praxis is integral to this reason and will and the sense of sacred.
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1. Jain metaphysics is built upon six reals (tattva, dravya), namely, consciousness =jīva =ātmā and five non-conscious ajīva, namely, dharma (rest, stability, equilibrium), adharma (motion), ākāśa, pudgala, kāla. Only pudgala are rūpī= mūrtta, having sensory qualities, are objects of sensory perception. Jīvapudgala is the person, both human and sub-human, is knower, agent, enjoyer of pleasures and pains. To note, there is no "mindbody relation" problem involved here because no "substance - essence" theory is admitted here and because jīva (ātman) and paramāņupuñja (pudgala) relation is not of the model "A-R-B". For us jivapudgala is a given fact. Jain philosophers speculate that karma-bandha from unknown past is the cause behind this fact.
2. Pudgala are paramāņu puñja (skandha), i.e., atom compositions. The changing modes of the compositions, paryāya, make the world of objects of our sensory perception, like jar, table, flower. The changing modes have cognitive identity for us because of the four qualities resident in it (pudgala). The pudgala means fusion-dispersion of atoms continuously going on, having different modes. A particular mode (say, a jar) as an event lasts so long as another paryāya, an eventual mode, a non-jar (may be a table or a cup) does not occur. Thus it can be said, I believe, the jar is defined by its resident qualities (eg, red etc) as well as "non-jar". This metaphysical idea presented in language – śruta jñāna, is confirmed, I believe, in the third statement in saptabhangīnaya: syād ghaṭa asti ca nāsti ca. The now existing jar is metaphysically determined by its other, defined by its other non-jar. In this sense the jar is also non-jar. The idea becomes clear if we accept that we cannot get behind words. Words are signs, the signified is another word. We move from word to word to word. This is the position of today's philosophy of language. Claude Levi-Strauss had said that a word is
तुलसी प्रज्ञा अंक 140
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