Jainism Paper

Beau Hilton

RELC630

Dr. Keller

Anekantavada

            “An” – article of negation. “Ek” – one, single. “Anta” – view, side. “Vada” – doctrine of. “Anekantavada,” then, is the doctrine of “no single view.” To a Latter-day Saint, or, indeed, any of the People of the Book, the claim that no single view of things is the completely right view seems at first to be at least uncomfortable, if not blasphemous: God is supreme, and His truth is the truth. However, to a Jain there is also the notion of a supreme truth, namely, that truth which was discovered and handed down by the Tirthankaras. How, then, can anekantavada be one of the three core tenets of Jain religion? This paper will explore the doctrine of anekantavada and examine its capacity for usefulness in the lives of religious persons of all faiths. I will, primarily, defend the doctrine in the spirit of syncretism and appreciation. Anekantavada will be argued for by virtue of three of its effects. First, it encourages inter-religious dialogue, appreciation, and “holy envy.” Second, it helps religious persons to remain open to new spiritual inspiration. Third, far from denying absolute truth and encouraging moral relativism, it asserts that there is a supreme truth, but that that supreme truth is simply beyond human grasp until omniscience is gained.

Jain Logic

Before any of the outlined points are defended, a cursory explanation of the logic of anekantavada is in order. Two supplementary doctrines or theories provide the framework for anekantavada, namely nayavada and syadvada.[1] Nayavada describes the standpoints from which a thing might be investigated, and recognizes validity in both Buddhist and Hindu views. That is, a thing might be investigated based upon its identity or center of being, and corresponds to a degree with the Hindu idea of the Brahman-Atman and advaitya, or non-differentiated reality – all things have a core that is real. A thing might also be investigated in terms of its change or action, which corresponds to the Buddhist view of the transitory nature of things. What is found by investigation depends on the viewpoint of the investigator.[2] Syadvada is a system of qualification and predication that holds seven valid options, which are derived from three possibilities. The options are these:

1.     X is

2.     X is not

3.     X is and is not

4.     X is inexpressible

5.     X is and is inexpressible

6.     X is not and is inexpressible

7.     X is and is not and is inexpressible.

The three possibilities are yes (is), no (is not), and inexpressible.[3] Syadvada comes from the Sanskrit “syat,” which may be translated as “in a way” or “conditionally,” and must be added to all of the options above. Therefore, there are many ontological possibilities – in a way, X is and X is not. To use Cort’s analogy, a table is a table if we are using it as a table, but what does it become when we sit on it? Is a desk a dining table when it is being used to eat at? “In a way,” says Syadvada, “the answer is yes and it is no.” Upon combining nayavada and syadvada, the doctrine of anekantavada comes into clearer light – there are many ways to describe and know things, many things may only be understood by their changing nature, and all of this must be qualified by the “syat” addendum. The purpose of all of these mental gymnastics is simply to get at a clearer, rounder, and more accurate view of truth, nature, and each other.

Inter-Religious Interaction

Krister Stendahl had three maxims for inter-religious dialogue, the third of which is to allow room for what he termed “holy envy.” In our relationship with the theologies of other faiths there is a tendency to feel threatened by anything beautiful, to disallow the possibility of seeing beauty “because those religions are false anyway,” or to become angry when falsehoods are found. Armed with anekantavada, none of these reactions hold for long. May it be, perhaps, that we are all looking at the same thing from a different angle? Is it possible that what we are seeing is true “in a way,” and maybe that way is a valid way in at least one sense? Later we will examine the greater context of anekantavada and how it prevents absolute relativism, but for now let us be relativists so far as the doors of religious littleness are thrown open and inter-religious appreciation may be gained. Anekantavada allows us to understand why aspects of our own faith may be threatening to others while simultaneously allowing us to be less threatened by beauty, truth, or falsehood we find in other religions. According to anekantavada, it is certain that our own viewpoint is not complete, whether its content of truth is a kernel or a wagonload. Religious dialogue is made more comfortable by anekantavada, but more than this, anekantavada will be impetus for the honest seeker of truth. Upon realization that one’s own view is not complete, one would want to find out about as many other views as possible with the goal of eventually finding something transcendently real. A person may, using this doctrine, move from disgust to tolerance to appreciation and possibly to acceptation. Anekantavada, while not forcing a person to accept all things as equally true, at least opens that person’s eyes to the prospect of truth in other places.

           

Openness Assists in Inspiration

Chief among the sins is pride. Pride sets up a wall between the heart and the infinite and prevents their contact. I wonder how many revelations or spiritual impressions have not been received simply because a person refused to believe in the chance of such revelation being real. In this same line of thinking, perhaps aparigraha, ahimsa, and anekantavada are three sides of the same issue – refusing to see other possibilities can be a result of stubbornly grasping at preconceived notions, and this in turn is violence to the soul.[4] All religious traditions value humility as the antithesis to pride and prerequisite to religious experience, and anekantavada is in many ways a doctrine of humility. There is recognition of the problems of knowing, and recognition that every being faces these same problems. It tells the practitioner to be rigorous in study and slow to draw conclusions, to be generous in his or her treatment of the views of others. As Carrithers points out, in-fighting and out-fighting does occur on occasion among the Jains, sometimes with physical violence, but it is difficult to find a case in history where the fighting has taken place over doctrinal issues.[5] This openness of view contributes to peace with other humans and peace with divinity, allowing an influx of compassion and learning from both.

Anekantavada and Supreme Truth

As was stated at the outset, the Jain belief is in an absolute truth. In anekantavada there is not only possibility of supreme truth, there is surety of supreme truth.[6] Core to Jain doctrine is the ability of every soul to gain godhood. Godhood is predicated upon omniscience, or the experience of kevala-jñana, so it may be said that every soul has the ability to rise above the plane of limited cognition and finally grasp truth in its entirety. One ceases to have knowledge and instead becomes knowledge. In Jain doctrine this change occurs when the soul is no longer burdened down by heavy karmic particles. In other doctrines this change may happen in other ways, as the eventual outcome of devotion, atonement, samadhi, satori, and so on. In the practical sense, the recognition that supreme truth exists forces the simultaneous recognition that none of us (or, optimistically speaking, very few of us) possess this supreme truth. Life becomes a journey and quest to compassionately seek for supreme truth through study and right living, and through the study of right living. The quest is aided by seeing truth on all sides and by being open to the possibility of being wrong. Anekantavada does not make of us lazy agnostics, bitter nihilists, or sad impotents, but guides us in the path of the jina, conquerors.

Conclusion

         The study of anekantavada is itself subject to the doctrine of anekantavada – perhaps it is only useful from certain standpoints, and perhaps there are better ways to describe the principles and truths that anekantavada claims for itself. It is evident to me, however, from my own exploration and consideration of the doctrine, that there is more than just a little of the divine present here. As Joseph said, God holds none of our contracted notions and sees none of His children with anything but fatherly compassion. Anekantavada is a mode of thinking and acting that creates love in the human heart, expands the soul and the mind, asks for both more critical and more free thought, and drives one towards truth. I see nothing but God in that.

           

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[1] For a better and fuller treatment of these doctrines, see Koller, “Syadvada as the Epistemological Key to the Jaina Middle Way Metaphysics of Anekantavada,” and Jain, “Saptabhangi – The Jaina Theory of Sevenfold Predication: A Logical Analysis.” The bulk of the information from this paragraph is sourced from these two essays.

[2] As an interesting note, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in physics holds that if a great deal is known about a particle’s current location, then very little can be known about its movement, and if a great deal is known about a particle’s movement, then very little can be known about its current location. A Jain would love this.

[3] See Cort, “’Intellectual Ahimsa’ Revisited: Jain Tolerance and Intolerance of Others”

[4] This is similar to the modern Jain apologetic view. See Cort, “Intellectual Ahimsa.”

[5] Carrithers “On Polytropy: Or the Natural Condition of Spiritual Cosmopolitanism in India: The Digambar Jain

Case.” 858-860. When fighting occurs in and around Jain communities, it is typically over the issues all communities fight about – land, money, etc. In the case Carrithers described, both offended parties added religious purposes for the conflict later, but the conflict arose over more mundane matters.

[6] Sinari treats this in “A pragmatist critique of Jaina relativism,” and calls the Jain philosophical tendency “transcendentalism par excellence.”

HUM 201 Journal Entry 4

The Shift from Material Happiness to Internal Happiness

Indian Philosophy and Nicomachean Ethics

            The astonishing realization that things have not always been as they are is one of the great reasons for studying ancient humanities. While holding to my thesis that people are and have been basically the same for the duration of the history that may be called human, it is undeniable that philosophical institutions and understandings have changed dramatically over the millennia. It is taken for granted in modernity that happiness is internal. Methods for producing internal happiness differ from philosophy to philosophy, religion to religion, but I contend without hesitation that the vast majority people of the world today know, though they might not always practice accordingly, that lasting happiness is not in material things. This is due largely to the work of two of the largest influences on modern human thought: Indian philosophy and Greek philosophy.[1] Indian philosophy and Nicomachean ethics both represent the philosophical shift from materialism to what may be termed spirituality by emphasizing right understanding, right action, and right habit.

            Aristotle is meticulous at his approach to gain right understanding. As was noted by several students within my earshot, Aristotle’s method is to go around and around a thing and seek to understand it from every angle, refusing conclusion until a satisfying thoroughness is achieved. Understanding the impossibility of perfection, even using the most rigorous methods available, he is content to  “indicate the truth roughly and in outline… to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits” (Supplement 17). The right understanding of what is epistemologically possible was similarly voiced by Indian Jain philosophers in the doctrines of anekantavada, syadvada, and nayavada. Anekantavada literally means “doctrine of not one side,” meaning that there is necessarily more than one way to look at things. Nayavada considers the different points of view that observers may bring with them, including prejudices and predispositions. Syadvada makes every statement conditional by adding the Sanskrit word “syat” to any claim, transforming, for example, “this chair is big” into “this chair, in a way, is big,” or, more generally, “in a way, X is Y, and in a way, X is not Y.” With all of this considered, the honest acquisition of truth becomes an effort well defined by Aristotle when he claimed only a rough definition of the truth. Armed with the right understanding of our own limitations, we march forward in an attempt at right action.

            Permissible actions in Hinduism are of four categories: pleasure, power, duty, and release. Of these the first two are considered lower and the last two are considered higher, with the goal of release being the highest. Aristotle examines pleasure, honor, money-making, and happiness as the general categories of human endeavor, and ranks as the highest category that of happiness attained through virtue. There is great, though not total, correlation between Aristotle’s definition of happiness and Hinduism’s definition of release. Aristotle sees happiness correlating to material things as low and fleeting. Hinduism sees the material world as something that must be escaped for release to happen and nirvana to set in. Aristotle says, “We call final without qualification that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else.” In the Bhagavad Gita, one of Hinduism’s sacred scriptures, the avatar Krishna tells the great warrior Arjuna “A disciplined man abandons the fruits of his action and attains unlimited peace, but an undisciplined man becomes a slave to the rewards of his action” (Bhagavad Gita 5:12). Action done for a reward other than the action itself is doomed to disappointment, and is missing the essence of happiness. Action, therefore, may be called “right” if it is done because it is right, and not because of any outcome apart from internal happiness.

            Right habit, according to Aristotle, comes from practice in doing what is right and virtuous (22). Gandhi, arguably the most prominent Indian of recent times, agreed wholeheartedly. In battling the caste system prominent in India, he affirmed that if one acts as a holy man, then one is a holy man, and if one acts as a slave, then one is a slave, regardless of birth or station. There is evidence that ancient Indian philosophy was similar to Gandhi’s views (cf. Bhaskarananda, The Essentials of Hinduism 23). There is nothing in man’s nature but potential, and this potential may be nourished through action and preserved when actions become habits. In correlation with Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean, we have “sarvam atyanta garhitam,” meaning “too much of anything is bad” (Bhaskarananda 187). Hinduism respects and venerates the great discipline and moral rectitude of the ascetic holy persons, but self-mortification was never the purpose and is not permissible for even the holy persons, for a life may not be taken before its time. In virtue, morality, as well as in practical living, a doctrine of the mean and right habit is affirmed in both traditions.

            In showing the great similarities within the philosophical traditions of Aristotle and the Indian ancients, I have sought to focus only on points of agreement. There are obviously great differences in matters of theology, theodicy, the organization of society, art critique, etc. My goal in this examination has been simply to trace some of our taken-for-granted philosophical stances to two of their possible roots. Of course, we in the American West owe most of our cultural philosophy to Aristotle and other occidental thinkers. However, as the worlds of East and West become ever more integrated, it is valuable to find common ground on which to build, common sensibilities that may be activated, and common subjects on which to have intercourse.

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[1] Though no figures are cited to support this claim, it is easily defendable. From India came Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and others, which spread into greater Asia. Greece imparted traditional occidental philosophy and paved the way for Christianity and Islam to take root, which spread into Europe, the Americas, and Africa. Much culture mixing added into this, coming from China, greater Arabia, Africa, etc., but identifiable and undeniable roots are in India and Greece. Most of the human family falls under the umbrella of one or both of these schools.