Jainism

Tradition·Founded c. 550 BCE·est. ~4–5 million worldwide

Vedic Religion → Jainism

Branch
Core tenet of Jainism

Truth has many sides.

Anekantavada: every view is partial; certainty about the whole is a category error.

Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held

Anekantavada — many-sidedness — holds that reality has infinite aspects and any single statement captures only one. Its companion doctrine, syadvada, prefixes assertions with "in some respect," producing a sevenfold logic of qualified claims. The famous illustration is the blind men and the elephant, which is Jain in origin: each is reporting accurately and none has the whole. It functions as an epistemological form of non-violence — dogmatism is treated as a species of aggression.

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