Anekantavada


is the Jain doctrine about metaphysical truths that emerged in ancient India. It states that the ultimate truth and reality is complex and has multiple aspects and viewpoints.
According to Jainism, no single, specific statement can describe the nature of existence and the absolute truth. This knowledge, it adds, is comprehended only by the Arihants. Other beings and their statements about absolute truth are incomplete, and at best a partial truth. All knowledge claims, according to the anekāntavāda doctrine must be qualified in many ways, including being affirmed and denied. Anekāntavāda is a fundamental doctrine of Jainism.
The origins of anekāntavāda can be traced back to the teachings of Mahāvīra, the 24th Jain, and the predecessor Tirthankars. The dialectical concepts of syādvāda "conditioned viewpoints" and nayavāda "partial viewpoints" were expounded and illustrated from anekāntavāda in the medieval era, providing Jainism with more detailed logical structure and expression. The details of the doctrine emerged in Jainism in the 1st millennium CE, from debates between scholars of Jain, Buddhist and Vedic schools of philosophies.
Anekantavada has also been interpreted to mean non-absolutism, "intellectual Ahimsa", religious pluralism, as well as a rejection of fanaticism that leads to terror attacks and mass violence. Some scholars state that modern revisionism has attempted to reinterpret anekantavada with religious tolerance, openmindedness and pluralism. The word may be literally translated as “non-one-sidedness doctrine,” or “the doctrine of not-one-side.”

Etymology

The word anekāntavāda is a compound of two Sanskrit words: anekānta and vāda. The word anekānta itself is composed of three root words, "an", "eka" and "anta", together it connotes "not one ended, sided", "many-sidedness", or "manifoldness". The word vāda means "doctrine, way, speak, thesis". The term anekāntavāda is translated by scholars as the doctrine of "many-sidedness", "non-onesidedness", or "many pointedness".
The term anekāntavāda is not found in early texts considered canonical by Svetambara tradition of Jainism. However, traces of the doctrines are found in comments of Mahavira in these Svetambara texts, where he states that the finite and infinite depends on one's perspective. The word anekantavada was coined by Acharya Siddhasen Divakar to denote the teachings of Mahavira that state truth can be expressed in infinite ways. The earliest comprehensive teachings of anekāntavāda doctrine is found in the Tattvarthasutra by Acharya Umaswami, and is considered to be authoritative by all Jain sects. In the Digambara tradition texts, the 'two-truths theory' of Kundakunda also provides the core of this doctrine.

Philosophical overview

The doctrine of anekāntavāda, also known as anekāntatva, states that truth and reality is complex and always has multiple aspects. Reality can be experienced, but it is not possible to totally express it with language. Human attempts to communicate are naya, or "partial expression of the truth". Language is not truth, but a means and attempt to express it. From truth, according to Mahāvīra, language returns, and not the other way around. For example, one can experience the truth of a taste, but cannot fully express that taste through language. Any attempts to express the experience are syāt, or valid "in some respect" but it still remains a "perhaps, just one perspective, incomplete". In the same way, spiritual truths are complex, they have multiple aspects, language cannot express their plurality, yet through effort and appropriate karma they can be experienced.
The anekāntavāda premises of the Jains are ancient, as evidenced by mentions of them in Buddhist texts such as the Samaññaphala Sutta. The Jain āgamas suggest that Mahāvīra's approach to answering all metaphysical philosophical questions was a "qualified yes". These texts identify anekāntavāda doctrine to be one of the key differences between the teachings of the Mahāvīra and those of the Buddha. The Buddha taught the Middle Way, rejecting the extremes of sense indulgence and self-mortification, and taking no sides in certain metaphysical questions, such as whether the Tathāgata exists after death or not, showing such questions to be based on wrong views and therefore invalid. The Mahāvīra, in contrast, taught his followers to accept both "it is" and "it is not", with "from a viewpoint" qualification and with reconciliation to understand the absolute reality. Syādvāda and Nayavāda of Jainism expand on the concept of anekāntavāda. Syādvāda recommends the expression of anekānta by prefixing the epithet syād to every phrase or expression describing the nature of existence.
The Jain doctrine of anekāntavāda, according to Bimal Matilal, states that "no philosophic or metaphysical proposition can be true if it is asserted without any condition or limitation". For a metaphysical proposition to be true, according to Jainism, it must include one or more conditions or limitations.

Syādvāda

Syādvāda is the theory of conditioned predication, the first part of which is derived from the Sanskrit word syāt, which is the third person singular of the optative tense of the Sanskrit verb as, 'to be', and which becomes syād when followed by a vowel or a voiced consonant, in accordance with sandhi. The optative tense in Sanskrit has the same meaning as the present tense of the subjunctive mood in most Indo-European languages, including Hindi, Latin, Russian, French, etc. It is used when there is uncertainty in a statement; not 'it is', but 'it may be', 'one might', etc. The subjunctive is very commonly used in Hindi, for example, in 'kya kahun?', 'what to say?'. The subjunctive is also commonly used in conditional constructions; for example, one of the few English locutions in the subjunctive which remains more or less current is 'were it ०, then ०', or, more commonly, 'if it were..', where 'were' is in the past tense of the subjunctive.
Syat can be translated into English as meaning "perchance, may be, perhaps". The use of the verb 'as' in the optative tense is found in the more ancient Vedic era literature in a similar sense. For example, sutra 1.4.96 of Panini's Astadhyayi explains it as signifying "a chance, maybe, probable".
In Jainism, however, syadvada and anekanta is not a theory of uncertainty, doubt or relative probabilities. Rather, it is "conditional yes or conditional approval" of any proposition, states Matilal and other scholars. This usage has historic precedents in classical Sanskrit literature, and particularly in other ancient Indian religions with the phrase, meaning "let it be so, but", or "an answer that is 'neither yes nor no', provisionally accepting an opponent's viewpoint for a certain premise". This would be expressed in archaic English with the subjunctive: 'be it so', a direct translation of. Traditionally, this debate methodology was used by Indian scholars to acknowledge the opponent's viewpoint, but disarm and bound its applicability to certain context and persuade the opponent of aspects not considered.
According to Charitrapragya, in Jain context syadvada does not mean a doctrine of doubt or skepticism, rather it means "multiplicity or multiple possibilities". Syat in Jainism connotes something different from what the term means in Buddhism and Hinduism. In Jainism, it does not connote an answer that is "neither yes nor no", but it connotes a "many sidedness" to any proposition with a sevenfold predication.
Syādvāda is a theory of qualified predication, states Koller. It states that all knowledge claims must be qualified in many ways, because reality is many-sided. It is done so systematically in later Jain texts through saptibhaṅgīnaya or "the theory of sevenfold scheme". These saptibhaṅgī seem to have been first formulated in Jainism by the 5th or 6th century CE Svetambara scholar Mallavadin, and they are:
  1. Affirmation: syād-asti—in some ways, it is,
  2. Denial: syān-nāsti—in some ways, it is not,
  3. Joint but successive affirmation and denial: syād-asti-nāsti—in some ways, it is, and it is not,
  4. Joint and simultaneous affirmation and denial: '—in some ways, it is, and it is indescribable,
  5. Joint and simultaneous affirmation and denial: '—in some ways, it is not, and it is indescribable,
  6. Joint and simultaneous affirmation and denial: '—in some ways, it is, it is not, and it is indescribable,
  7. Joint and simultaneous affirmation and denial: '—in some ways, it is indescribable.
Each of these seven predicates state the Jain viewpoint of a multifaceted reality from the perspective of time, space, substance and mode. The phrase syāt declares the standpoint of expression – affirmation with regard to own substance, place, time, and being, and negation with regard to other substance, place, time, and being. Thus, for a ‘jar’, in regard to substance – earthen, it simply is; wooden, it simply is not. In regard to place – room, it simply is; terrace, it simply is not. In regard to time – summer, it simply is; winter, it simply is not. In regard to being – brown, it simply is; white, it simply is not. And the word ‘simply’ has been inserted for the purpose of excluding a sense not approved by the ‘nuance’; for avoidance of a meaning not intended.
According to Samantabhadra's text Āptamīmāṁsā, "Syādvāda, the doctrine of conditional predications, and kevalajñāna, are both illuminators of the substances of reality. The difference between the two is that while kevalajñāna illumines directly, syādvāda illumines indirectly". Syadvada is indispensable and helps establish the truth, according to Samantabhadra.