Ahimsa of the mind

 On the  143rd birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi   I was led,  almost magically, to  the root  concepts that led to  his adoption of   "Ahimsa"  - Non Violence.

 It made me think of the violent times we live in. Of the violence done to  our minds by  certain ideas I had, as a documentary photographer,  once firmly believed in.  Reality. The truth of the photograph.

 Reality !  The Truth ! They are violent conceptions of the contemporary Western Mind . Concepts that are about political and cultural control .Concepts that come from the monotheism  of "Religions of the Book".

 Concepts that underwrite Photography and are reinforced by it in our post Photography times.  times where  lens based projections of 'reality' have more power than the so called reality they represent.

I have thought  and written about  this many times. An essay on Drishti or Perception  that I wrote for the India Habitat Centre Journal in 2006  begins with  a quote from Fritjof Capra.  From his Tao of Physics.

"Maya is the illusion of mistaking our relative perceptive for reality - of confusing the map with the  territory"

I was reminded of that this morning when I read about  Anekantavada  - the Jain concept  that is about  Plurality . The acceptance of the  plurality of the  world and multiplicity of  our ideas about it.  It is an idea that challenges  singular politics  and monocular 'reality' of the camera's gaze.

 I linked to this small short intro to it  this morning. it added a lot to my thinking about Photography as Mahamaya - a Maya machine that is creating havoc in our contemporary world.


Anekāntavāda (Devanagari: अनेकान्तवाद), meaning "non-absolutism," is one of the basic principles of Jainism that encourages acceptance of relativism and pluralism. According to this doctrine, truth and reality are perceived differently from different points of view, and no single point of view is the complete truth.^[1][2]


Anekāntavāda encourages its adherents to consider the views and beliefs of their rivals and opposing parties. Proponents of anekantvāda apply this principle to religionand philosophy, reminding themselves that any religion or philosophy, even Jainism, which clings too dogmatically to its own tenets, is committing an error based on its limited point of view.^[6] 

The Jain doctrine lays a strong emphasis onsamyaktva, that is, rationality and logic.^[9] Jain suggests that the ultimate principle should always be logical and no principle can be devoid of logic or reason.^[9] Thus, one finds in the Jain texts, deliberative exhortations on any subject in all its facts.^[10] In the process, the Jains came out with three doctrines of relativity^[11] used for logic and reasoning.

• Anekāntavāda—The theory of relative pluralism or manifoldness
• Syādvāda—The theory of conditioned predication
• Nayavāda—The theory of partial standpoints

The concept of anekānta and syādvāda allows the Jains to accept the truth in other philosophies from their perspective and thus inculcating a tolerance for other viewpoints. Anekantvāda is non-absolutist and stands firmly against all dogmatisms, even including any assertion that only Jainism is the right religious path.^[26] It is thus an intellectual Ahimsā or Ahimsā of mind

In Anekantvāda, there is no "battle of ideas," because this is considered to be a form of intellectual himsa or damage, leading quite logically to physical violence and war. In today's world, the limitations of the adversarial, "either with us or against us" form of argument are increasingly apparent leading to political, religious and social conflicts.


 "…He is neither Jain nor Buddhist, Vaisnava nor Saiva, Hindu nor Muslim, but a traveler on the path of peace shown by the supreme soul, the God who is free from passion."



http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Anekantavada