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meaningful because of its binary "other" word. Thus "light" and "dark" give meaning to each other by a binary relation. A single word by itself has no meaning. Rejecting this Structuralist view Jacque Derrida says that a word includes its other within its meaning. He refers to Plato's use of the word "pharmakon". The word means medicine, elixir of life as well as poison etc in its uses in Plato's writings. Thus the word contains opposites as its meaning. This idea Derrida applies in general in his theory of words and meanings. One can say that the sentence, ghata' asti ca nästi ca, reflects this idea if taken in terms of philosophy of language. The point I want to make is that today's cultural problem of the "other" can be seen in this light. In fact the other or others are not that "other" sealed off against each other. anekāntavāda, then, said this long before Derrida.
3. The theory of pudgala dravya points to another important direction. Though the atomic compositions are ever changing the resident qualities remain there. The qualities are not only varied and innumerable in their shades and grades, some of them have even opposite traits. For example, in a pudgala, at a given time, are both he traits of smell-fragrance and nidorous. This is true of all the four qualities residing in paramānupuñja. According to situation, time etc it is determined whether fragrance shall be the dominant quality and the nidorous receding to the background, and vice-versa. The point is that the anekāntavāda not only accommodates the differences but also the opposites without difficulties -this metaphysical theory can be transformed into a sociocultural theory.
4.1. To sum up. anekāntavāda means more than coexistence of two opposite metaphysical principles, namely, jīva and ajīva that make a person = vyakti, both human and sub-human. The classical example is Mahavira's reply to Gautam's question, whether the jiva (jīvapudgala) is of eternal being or of contingent being? Mahavira said, it is both, eternal by its being dravya (conscious dravya), and contingent by its bhāva (paryāya). The point is that the subject of both these statements is one and the same.
4.2. anekāntavāda means coexistence in one subject of innumerable and even opposing qualities. For example, the fragrant and the nidorous smell is present in any object of sensory perception, which one has prominence at a point of time depends.
4.3. anekāntavāda means any particular object of perception is
तुलसी प्रज्ञा जुलाई-सितम्बर, 2008
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