YJA Convention 1996 07 San Francisco CA Second

Author(s): Young Jains of America (YJA)
Publisher: Young Jains of America YJA USA

Page 24

ANEKANTVAD - BACKGROUND AND PRACTICE
By: Jhankhana Shah
Seven blind men were trying to describe an elephant. One man felt the leg and said the elephant is like a pillar. One man felt the body and said it is like a wall. Another felt the ear and said it is like a pan. A person who can see the whole elephant with her eyes can put all the views together in harmony with her knowledge of the whole. The story is a metaphor for anekantvad, the subject of our talk.
Anekantvad is non-one-sidedness of viewpoint. It does not mean that all views are right. (The blind man that calls the elephant a wall is not right, nor the one who calls the elephant a pillar). However, it does mean that different views should be considered and can be synthesized as partial expressions of truth, when they are properly qualified. The person who sees the whole elephant is a symbol for pramana, which is a means of knowledge that reveals the thing as a whole. The seven blind men can be seen as symbols of the seven nayas, or viewpoints, in Jain philosophy.
Anekantvad does not mean that nothing is real. It does not mean that anything is true. Jain philosophy accepts reality as objective. As Kendall Folkert writes, "The external view is the arbiter, in the end, of correct judgment, and it is the multifaceted nature of the world that necessitates multi-faceted judgments concerning it." Another metaphor that has been used to illustrate this multi-faceted nature is a crystal with many facets, each one as part of the whole. It is not only that we, like blind men, cannot fully perceive and describe the complex nature of reality fully, with our limited means of perception. It is also that reality itself, like a crystal, has many facets. While reality may be experienced completely, by an omniscient, it can only be described in a limited way, in relation to certain aspects that are relevant to the purposes of the discussion.
Let's move from metaphors of elephants and crystals to the actual terms that have been used in Jain writing regarding anekantvad. There is a historical development to these terms that I have neither researched in detail, nor will present here in detail. Keep in mind that these concepts make reference to other systems of philosophy, such as Buddhist and Vedanta philosophy. Some Jain writers, however, do not always support claims of anekantvad as the harmonization and acceptance of other religious systems. This will be discussed further in a separate section.
Nayavada and Syadvada
The universe is made up of things that can be classified in terms of dravya, which means substance, guna, which means quality, and paryaya, which means mode. Substances underlie qualities. Qualities are located in substances and do not, themselves, have qualities. Qualities have modes. For instance a soul (dravya) has the quality (guna) of knowledge, which in the case of a non-omniscient being is in a partially expressed, but partially obscured mode (paryaya).
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Jain Education Intemational