Lessons of Ahimsa and Anekanta for Contemporary Life

Author(s): Tara Sethia
Publisher: California State Polytechnic University Pomona

Page 100

anekāntavāda can in fact equally be interpreted as indices of its exclusivism. Indeed, the ancient scriptural evidence suggests that Jainism from the very beginning saw alternative religious paths as inadequate. For example, the Uttaradhyayana Sutra 23. 63 states, "The heterodox and the heretics have all chosen a wrong path; the right path is that taught by the Jinas; it is the most excellent path." Therefore, it is not surprising to find that the Jains in general never, until the ecumenical twentieth century, subscribed to the possibility of all religions being in some way equal. Indeed, the classical texts generally excoriate such apparent liberalism as a specific form of false belief (mithyādṛṣṭi) called vainayika, a general, undiscriminating reverence towards objects and personages of worship in other sects which has been rendered by one translator as "misguided egalitarianism.”
However, there is another strand of opinion in Jainism which can most clearly be located in the writings of Acarya Haribhadra. The dating of this figure is problematic but for our purposes the writings attributed to him can be said to fall between the late 6th and the mid 8th centuries CE. Haribhadra occasionally does not accept the possibility of any sort of approval of or accommodation with those who fail to conform to the ethical commands of the Jinas, even though they perform fierce austerities which Jainism claims are integral to genuine spiritual advancement. He also denies that those who are outside the command of the Jinas can have any sort of religious restraint in
7
4
Paul Dundas, "Beyond Anekantavāda"
Hermann Jacobi (trans.), Jaina Sutras, Pt II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895), p. 126.
5 Nathmal Tatia (trans.), Umāsväti's Tattvärtha Sutra, That Which Is (San Francisco/ London / Pymble: HarperCollins 1994), pp. 189-90.
6
See Paul Dundas, "Handbook on Giving," Journal of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 30, 2000, pp. 8 and 30.
7 Haribhadra, Pañcāśaka 11. 39. Pannyās Śrī Padmavijayaji Mahārāja Gaṇivarya (ed.), Pañcāśakaprakraṇa (Hastinapur: Śrī Nirgrantha Sahitya Prakāśan Samgha, 1999).
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