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Anekantavada

 * Basic Jaina Epistimology by J. Soni - "The teachings of the Jinas are regarded as reliable and authoritative, and every basic idea concerning ontology,epistemology, and ethics is traced back to a tradition started by such beings"


 * Intellectual Ahimsa revisited
 * The expression "intellectual ahimsa" was picked up a few years later by H. R. Kapadia in his introduction to Haribhadrasuri's Anekantajayapataka:4 When this ahimsa is allowed to play its role on an intellectual plane it teaches us to examine and respect the opinions of others as they, too, are some of the angles of vision or pathways to reality which is many-sided and enable us to realize and practise truth in its entirety. This implies that ahimsa-the Jaina attitude of "intellectual ahimsa" is the origino f anekantavadaI. n other words the Jainap rincipleo f "respectf or life" (ahimsa)i s the origino f "respectf or the opinion of others"( anekantavada)(.K apadia1 947, p. cxiv)
 * Kapadia continues, saying of anekantavada that it "helps us in cultivating the attitudeo f tolerationt owards the views of our adversaries,"a n attitudet hat is "an attemptt owardss yncretism"a nd "a rapprochemenbt etween the seemingly warring systems of philosophy" (ibid., p. cxix).
 * Dhruva'sf ormulationw as also picked up by G. W. Burch,w ho argues: Jain logic is intellectuala himsa.J usta s a right-actingp erson respectst he life of all beings, so a right-thinkinpge rson acknowledgest he validityo f all judgments.T his means recognizing all aspects of reality, not merely one or some aspects, as is done in non-Jain philosophies. (Burch 1964, pp. 71-72) Burch goes on to contrast this Jain breadth of vision with the more limited perspectives of Vedanta, which "recognizes substances but not process," and Buddhism, which "recognizes process but not substance" (ibid., p. 72). Jainism, on the other hand, pays equal attentiont o both substance (dravya)a nd process (paryaya).5 According to Burch, Jainism "denies the validity of any absolute, that is, exclusive, judgment" (ibid.), and so Jain philosophy is characterized by non-absolutism (anekantavada) a nd relativism( syadvada).
 * Bimal Matilal, surely one of the most astute and critical of recent scholars of Indian thought, follows Kapadia unquestioningly and discusses anekantavada as the extension of ahimsa onto the philosophical plane when he characterizes anekantavada as "a doctrine that was characterized by toleration, understandinga nd respectf or the views of others"( Matilal1 981, p. 6).
 * Tatia( 1951, pp. 21-22) posits that anekantavada developed directly from the emphasis on ahirns in Jain mendicant practice. In particularh e focuses on the relatedp racticeso f restrainto f speech (vakgupti)a nd self-regulationo f speech (bhasas amiti).7T he firsto f these calls for the mendicant "whenever there arises an occasion to speak then to restrict speech-if needs be to keep silent altogether" (Sukhlal 1974, p. 322). The second calls upon the mendicant "to speak what is true, beneficial, measured and free from doubt" (ibid.). According to Tatia, these mendicant practices were based on ahimsa and led directly to anekantavad. pAge 6
 * Among these was anekantavada,which, according to Singhvi, "describes the world as a multifaceted, everchanging reality with an infinity of viewpoints depending on the time, place, nature and state of the one who is the viewer and that which is viewed" (Singhvi 1990, p. 8). Singhvi further says that according to this Jain position, "absolute truth cannot be grasped from any particularv iewpoint alone because absolute truthi s the sum total of all the different viewpoints that make up the universe." Singhvi concludes by stating that because of anekantavada, "Jainism does not look upon the universe from an anthropocentrice, thnocentrico r egocentric point of view."
 * Accordingt o the Prabandhacintamanoif Meruturga,c ompleted in early 1305 C.E.( see Tawney 1899, pp. 105-106), the twelfth-centuryC aulukyae mperorJ ayasim.ha Siddharaja was desirous of enlightenment and liberation. He questioned teachers from all the various traditions, but remained in a quandary when he discovered that they all promoted their own teachings while disparaging other teachings. Among the teachers he questioned was the great Svetambara mendicant Hemacandra, known as the Omniscient One of the Kali Yuga (kalikalasarvajfia). Rather than promote Jainism Hemacandra told a story with a rather different moral. The moral of the tale, according to Hemacandra, was that just as the man was restoredb y the herb, even though no one knew which particularh erb did the trick, so in the Kali Yuga a wise person should obtain salvation by supporting all religious traditions, even though no one could say with absolute certainty which tradition it was that brought about that salvation.

Hemacandra is said to have used anekāntavāda and impressed and gained confidence and respect of Calukya Emperor Jayasimha Siddharaja, who was Kumarapala’s predecessor. According to another Jain text Prabandhacantamani, Emperor Siddharaja was desirous of enlightenment and liberation and he questioned teachers from all the various traditions. But he remained in a quandary when he discovered that they all promoted their own teachings while disparaging other teachings. Among the teachers he questioned was the Hemacandra, who rather than promote Jainism told him a story with a rather different moral. According to his story, a sick man got cured after eating all the herbs available as he was not aware that which herb was medicinal. The moral of the tale, according to Hemacandra, was that just as the man was restored by the herb, even though no one knew which particular herb did the trick, so in the Kali Yuga a wise person should obtain salvation by supporting all religious traditions, even though no one could say with absolute certainty which tradition it was that brought about that salvation.

Syadvada
Does Seven-Fold Predication Equal Four-Cornered Negation Reversed? Author(s): Archie J. Bahm

The primary purpose of sy,idvada is not to exhibit a complete set of varie- ties of formal conjunction. It is, rather, to assert (1) truth about existence, (2) that all truths about existence are relative, (3) that opposites (not con- tradictories) may both be predicated of existence, (4) that there is more to existence than can be expressed by predicates, no matter how completely (i.e., in terms of extreme opposites) we try to do so, and (5) affirmatively all that can be asserted about existence. The ultimate goal of Jain doctrine, kaivalya, the liberated state of the soul, is not negative but positive. The bound soul, caught in the world of appear- ances, experiences reality but experiences it relatively, and syadv,da is an attempt to deal with the problem of stating all possible relative knowledge of such a bound soul. In kaivalya, the liberate state, one's experience is omnis- cient, i.e., freed from mere relativity and mistaken negation. Whoever misses or ignores the metaphysical basis of sy,dvada and tries to deal with it as a merely formal exercise is dealing with something other than sy,dv,da, no matter how similar, formally, it may seem