68. Haribhadrasūri: Introduction to the Doctrine of Non-One-Sidedness
A Sourcebook in Global Philosophy - Mohammed Rustom
Anil Mundra [+]
Rutgers University-New Brunswick
Description
The doctrine of non-one-sidedness (anekāntavāda) is often considered to be the central philosophy of the Indian religion of Jainism. It is most basically the thesis that real things consistently admit of contrary predicates: e.g. existence and non-existence, permanence and impermanence, etc. Haribhadrasūri, an influential scholar monk credited with producing a vast and various corpus around the eighth century CE, refused the polarization of various philosophical schools of his time that tended to favor one or the other of these one-sided descriptions to the exclusion of its opposite. In this selection from his Introduction to the Doctrine of Non-One-Sidedness (Anekāntavādapraveśa)—a primer of his magnum opus, the Victory-Flag of Non-One-Sidedness (Anekāntajayapatākā)—Haribhadrasūri argues that liberation is only possible if the self is neither absolutely permanent nor impermanent, but rather both stable and changing from moment to moment. He adduces common-sense examples of how contrary predicates can apply to the same thing at the same time (but always only qualifiedly such that one or the other never obtains absolutely), and sets some of the basic terms for all later treatments of the doctrine of non-one-sidedness.