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GUIDELINES TO MAHAVIR - DARSHAN
PART III PHILOSOPHY
LESSON VII
ANEKANTA-VADA The Anekanta-Vada is the distinctive feature of the Jain philosophy. It is a unique doctrine of the Jain philosophy. It is its original contribution to the course of the world-thought.
The distinguishing characteristics of a substance are its origination, destruction and permanence. These three characteristics are different from one another and cannot be understood apart from the substance itself. By permanence, it is meant that the essential nature of the substance is indestructible, though it may undergo certain modifications with reference to its form, space and time. It follows, therefore, that indestructibility of permanence is only one characteristic or the characteristic from one point of view and not from all points of view; for if it were the latter, there cannot be any change at all.
Each substance has general as well as special characteristics. A thing or an object may change its qualities. For example, a human being grows up from childhood into a youth, thereafter to manhood. thereafter to old age. Throughout these changes, he maintains his essential characteristic of a human being. It is the acceptance of this change with different phases that forms the basis of the Jain doctrine of manifold points of view or relative pluralism or Anekanta-vada.
Reality is never absolute, self-centred or abstract but is always many-sided in accordance with the plurality of its relationships to the manifold other reals. It is one and many, eternal and evanescent, general and particular, immutable and changing, real and phenomenal and so on- always the abode of apparently opposite features, all harmonized into a concrete whole. This is the essence of the Svad-vac this Syad-vada or Anekanta-vada is the soul of the Jain philosophy.
The Jains have evolved a unique method of understanding and explaining the nature of things. All things have multiple facets of their being. If a thing is described from one facet only, the knowledge is partial and therefore, it cannot be relied upon as the whole truth.
Naya is a particular approach, and gives information about the thing from that particular point of view. When all the nayas are taken together, they give a comprehensive idea about the thing while each retaining its individuality in its relative position. An example may be cited :
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