Anekāntavāda and Engaged Rhetorical Pluralism: Explicating Jaina Views on Perspectivism, Violence, and Rhetoric

Abstract

This study represents a detailed inquiry into the rhetoric of Jainism, an understudied religious-philosophical tradition that arose among Hinduism and Buddhism on the Indian subcontinent. Exploring the unique use of pluralism in Jaina authors such as Mahāvīra and Haribhadra, I advance the concept of engaged rhetorical pluralism to account for the argumentative use of pluralism to promote Jaina views. This concept is linked to Jainism’s theory of multiperspectivism (anekāntavāda) as an orientation toward one’s rhetorical activities in contexts of disagreement. Highlighting the controversies surrounding the relationship between Jaina tolerance and intellectual nonviolence, this study uses the concept of anekāntavāda to ground a pluralism of often contradictory critical claims made by those studying rhetorical phenomena from other cultures. Thus, anekāntavāda both describes the engaged pluralism evident in important Jaina rhetors and serves as a source of methodological guidance for scholars involved in comparative rhetoric and its inevitable situations of interpretative disagreement.