Jain philosophy · interactive
Many-Sided Reality
A traditional illustration
Six people, one elephant
In the darkness, each person touches one part and describes the whole: a snake, a fan, a pillar, a wall, a rope, a spear. Tap the six points to hear each description.
- trunk — It is like a snake
- ear — It is like a winnowing fan
- leg — It is like a pillar
- side — It is like a wall
- tail — It is like a rope
- tusk — It is like a spear
6 places left to touch.
The parable is widely used in Jain teaching; versions also appear in Buddhist and other Indian literature.
The core ideas
Reality has infinite aspects
Anekantavada holds that every real thing has innumerable attributes: permanent in one respect, changing in another. No single viewpoint captures it completely.
Partial viewpoints (naya)
A naya is a standpoint that grasps one aspect. It is valid within its limits, and it becomes a fallacy (nayābhāsa) when it claims to be the whole truth.
“Syāt” — in some respect
Syadvada prefixes claims with syāt, 'in some respect' or 'from a certain standpoint'. It is not an expression of doubt: each predication is true from the stated standpoint.
Ethics of thought
Many teachers present anekanta as intellectual ahimsa: a discipline of not doing violence to other views by dismissing them outright.
Syadvada: seven ways to speak about a pot
The seven-fold predication (saptabhaṅgī) applied to the classical example, an ordinary clay pot. Step through them.
syād asti
In some respect, it is.
The pot exists: as a clay pot, here, now, in its own form.