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4: Applied Philosophy of Jainism
inequality, the will for possession and occupation are the prime. Accumulation of wealth on one side and the lust of worldly enjoyment on the other are jointly responsible for the emergence of materialistic consumer culture. A tremendous advancement of the means of worldly enjoyment and the amenities of life has made us crazy for them.
Though wealth plays an important role in our life and it is considered as one of the four puruṣārthas i.e. the pursuits of life, yet it cannot be maintained as the sole end of life. Jainas, all the time, consider wealth as a means to lead a life and not an end. Acārya Amṛtacandra maintains that wealth is an external vitality of man. It is important for both -materialistic and spiritualistic as well. The only difference between the both is that for materialists it is a means to lead luxurious life whereas for spiritualist, it is means to welfare of human society and not for one's own enjoyment. If we want to save the humanity from class-conflicts, we will have to accept self imposed limitation of our possessions and modes of consumption. In Jainism it is the pious duty of a house-holder to fix a limit to his possessions as well as consumption and to use his surplus money for the service of mankind.
Problem of Conflicts in Ideologies and Faiths
Regarding this problem Jainism maintains that the nature of reality is complex. It can be looked from various angles or viewpoints. Human knowledge and understanding are unable to know the reality as a whole. We can have a partial and relative picture of it. One, who has only partial truth or has a one-sided picture of reality, has no right to discord the other's view as false. We must accept the view of our opponents because they may be right or true from some other angles. The Jaina theory of Anekantavāda or non-absolutism emphasises that all the approaches to understand the reality give partial but not true picture and due to their truth value from a certain angle we should regard the others ideologies and faith. In Lokatattvanirṇaya, Haribhadra says: "neither I bear favour towards
