Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 1

Author(s): Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 240

FOUNDATIONS OF WORLD PEACE AHIMSA AND ANEKÄNTA 229
gospel of love and friendship i.e. maitri and karuna. If we make definite beginning we shall start on the right track and ultimately succeed in eliminating the causes of jealousy, malice and international feud. Moral education combined with the kuowledge of science and technology will go a long way in the achievement of the goal. Let us not dismiss the ideal of ahimsa as a fantastic figment of a man living in ivory tower. It is not as impracticable as it appears and we shall have to find out the modus vivendi to avoid the catastrophe threatened by nuclear warfare.
Now let us discuss the logic and psychology of anekanta i. e. nonextremism. The Jaina does not believe in the extremist a priori logic of the Absolutist. Leaving the metaphysical question apart, and pragmatically considered this logical attitude breeds dogmatism and if carried one step further engenders fanaticism, the worst and vilest passion of the human heart. The dogmatist concludes that his view is the only correct one and whoever differs from his standpoint must be condemned of heresy. But truth has many facets at least in the field of experience. If we see only one side of the coin and refuse to see the other side our assessment will suffer from imperfection. A is A and never B- this monolithic conception of reality refuses to entertain other interpretations. But things that we encounter in experience are seen to vary from time to time. The chair or the table fresh from the factory is seen to lose its charm after use. This change is integral to the real, To dismiss change as deceptive appearance on the to fit in with the Procrustean
ground of its failure conception of uniformity fails to do
justice to our experience.
In philosophy the interpretation of the laws of thought viz the law of identity, the law of contradiction and the law of excluded middle have received different interpretations inspired by different logical attitude and the result has been the deployment of philosophers in antagonistic groups. Change and identity are held to be irreconcilable opposites. Change necessarily entails the idea of identity in the midst of the emergence of different attributes. A man is seen to be angry on one occasion and pleased on another and also simultaneouly in relation to different persons. Now the question is raised whether an identical entity, as the person is supposed to be, can have two incompatible predicates viz. anger and pleasure. If the attributes are identical with the subject, the subject is to be deemed to vary with the change of attributes and thus be reduced to different atomic units. This is the position of the Buddhist fluxist (kṣaṇabhamgavadi). It is the result of the law of contradiction which asserts that a thing cannot be both A