The Compossibility of Contraries and Determination of Identity in Haribhadrasūri’s Victory-Flag of Non-One-Sidedness (Anekāntajayapatākā)

Abstract

Abstract The basic thesis of Haribhadrasūri’s Victory Flag of Non-One-Sidedness ( Anekāntajayapatākā , c. 8th century CE) is that any real thing possesses contrary properties such as, in the first instance, existence and nonexistence. It is unsurprising, then, that both classical detractors and well-wishing modern proponents of the Jain philosophy of non-one-sidedness have often considered this Jain theory of non-one-sidedness ( anekāntavāda ) to tolerate or even embrace paradox and contradiction. As this paper shows, however, Haribhadra not only professes non-contradiction but in fact adheres to it in something quite like its Aristotelian form. Employing an ancient hermeneutical method that relativizes predicates according to analytical parameters ( nikṣepa s), Haribhadra maintains that contraries are compossible and indeed required to determine any real thing as what it is. Anglophone scholarship on contradiction and negation is leveraged to show how this reading problematizes some scholarly interpretations that saddle his theory with equivocation or triviality.