Book Title: World of Philosophy
Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan
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tional statements and so its validity is also conditional. The Relative statement in Jainism is called 'Naya'. Keeping myself to the theme, I avoid a long discussion about the 'Syadvad' and 'Nayavada'. In short, the Jainism in Indian philosophy gives a theory of Non-Absolutism and talks about the Relativism against Absolutism of the Vedanta theory of reality.
Gandhi's Truth: To understand the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi it is necessary to know that his personal life, his family, his education and youth-activities represent the cultural, social and political situation of three continents: Asia, Africa and Europe: Leaving a vast spectrum of his activities and ideas, I will deal here, with his philosophical ideas about Truth. In fact Gandhi's life and deeds, his discussions and decisions, his approaches and attitudes all these are based on his concept of Truth; and thus it becomes significantly important. We all know he gave his own biography a title: 'My Experiments with Truth' which suggests a lot more. Mahatma Gandhi, in his own writing about the issue of Truth, uses the words, Advaitist', 'Dvaitist' and 'Anekantvadi or Syadvadi'. Sometimes, like Shankara, he speaks and says the world is unreal, sometimes like a Pragmatist or Relativist he talks about the reality. We here want to note Gandhi's concept of Truth because his concept leads to 'Non - violence' and 'Satyagraha' (insistence for Truth) movement.
Let us note what Gandhiji wrote in 'young-India' in 1931:
"I would say with those who say God is love, God is love. But deep down in me I used to say that though God may be God, God is Truth above all----- but two years ago, I went a step further and said Truth is God ------ I then found that the nearest approach to Truth was through love. But I also found that love has many meanings in the English language at least and that human love in the sense of passion could become a degrading thing also. I found, too, that love in the sense of 'Ahimsa' (non-violence) had only a limited number of votaries in the world. But I never found a double meaning in connection with Truth and not even the atheist had demurred to the necessity or power of Truth. But in their passion for discovering Truth the atheist have not hesitated to deny the very existence of God -------- from their own point of view rightly. And it was because of this reason that I saw that rather than say God is Truth; I should say Truth is God."
Mahatma Gandhi is a theist, he believes in God. He accepts the moral governance of the Supreme Power which is beyond time, space, attributes and characters. To this power Gandhiji calls God. Supreme power, to him, means God; and God to him means Truth. The real name of God is Truth. According to Gandhiji, life is not a mere chance or accident. It has a definite purpose. The aim or goal of life is to attain the Truth which is God. The ultimate aim is God Realisation or Truth-Realisation; and for that one has to try throughout his life. He further says that to realise Truth, one has to be
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