Anekāntavāda

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
© The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions 1997, originally published by Oxford University Press 1997.

Anekāntavāda (Skt., anekānta = ‘non-one-sidedness’ or ‘manysidedness’). In Jain philosophy, the doctrine of the manysidedness of reality. The doctrine claims that seven assertions, apparently contradictory, but perfectly true, can be made about anything: (i) syādasti, maybe it truly is (for example, a cold room); (ii) syānnāsti, maybe it truly is not (if you enter it from a colder one); (iii) syādastināsti, maybe it truly is and is not (two different people's opposite statements could be true); (iv) syādavaktarya, maybe it is exhaustively indescribable (if two opposite statements are relatively true); (v) syādastyavaktarya, maybe it is and is indescribable; (vi) syānnāst yavaktavya, maybe it is not and is undescribable; (vii) syādastināstyavaktavya, maybe it is and is not and is indescribable.

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