PRECIS

Christian pluralists and their critics acknowledge the difficulty in
consistently presenting a pluralist view of religions, one that affirms the
truth within, and the autonomous value of, other religions. Gavin D'Costa,
in particular, argues that the pluralist employs tradition-specific
criteria according to an exclusivist logic. The Indian sources described
(Gautama Buddha, Jaina philosophers, M. K. Gandhi) suggest that a pluralist
view of religions is, indeed, possible and is based on three experiential
factors dependent on spiritual ascesis: awareness of the many-sided nature
of reality, detachment from one's own viewpoint, and nonviolence toward
others' viewpoints.

                              I. Introduction

Diana Eck's Encountering God is a sensitive record of her theological
reflection as a United Methodist in dialogue with Hinduism, a tradition
that she has studied in depth.[1] The book is also a careful yet
impassioned plea for a pluralist view of the religions. Eck discussed and
rejected the other two common options for interpreting the variety of
religions: exclusivism (only my own religion is true) and inclusivism
(other religions only approximate the truth found fully in my religion).
Pluralism, according to Eck, is based in the conviction that "[t]ruth is
not the exclusive or inclusive possession of any one [religious] tradition
or community" but is a reality best known through a dialogue between
differing religious viewpoints.[2] In the midst of her discussion of the
three major options for interpreting the variety of religions, however,
falls a fascinating observation:

One of the continual challenges and dilemmas in my own writing and thinking
is recognizing the ways in which I move back and forth along this
attitudinal continuum, coming from a context of Hindu-Christian dialogue,
understanding myself basically as a pluralist, and yet using what some will
see as inclusivist language as I widen and stretch my understanding of God,
Christ, and the Holy Spirit to speak of my Christian faith in a new way. I
cannot solve this dilemma, but I can warmly issue an invitation to join me
in thinking about it.[3]

This essay is one response to Eck's invitation, exploring the question of
what expectations are realistic for expressing a pluralist view.

In a 1996 article, "The Impossibility of a Pluralist View of Religions,"
Gavin D'Costa proposed a different explanation for difficulties in
consistently articulating the pluralist position.[4] He examined the
logical structure behind pluralist views of the religions and concluded
that this structure is identical to that of exclusivism. He defined a
pluralist standpoint as one "holding that all the major religions have true
revelations in part, while no single revelation or religion can claim final
and definitive truth."[5] In contrast, an exclusive viewpoint maintains
that "only one single revelation is true or one single religion is true and
all other 'revelations' or 'religions' are false."[6] While these two
positions seem diametrically opposed, their difference is due not to the
structure of argumentation, as assumed, but to the truth-claims and
criteria utilized within an identical logical form.

[T]here is no such thing as pluralism because all pluralists are committed
to holding some form of truth criteria and by virtue of this, anything that
falls foul of such criteria is excluded from counting as truth (in doctrine
and in practice). Thus, pluralism operates within the same logical
structure of exclusivism and in this respect pluralism can never really
affirm the genuine autonomous value of religious pluralism for, like
exclusivism, it can only do so by tradition specific criteria for truth.[7]

Pluralism as a category is, then, according to D'Costa, redundant and
mistakenly conceived.

Are criteria of truth essential to every view of the religions? D'Costa has
said he can find few, if any, pluralists avoiding such criteria, lest they
be incapable of distinguishing between valid and invalid forms of
revelation or religion, for example, between the beliefs of the Confessing
Church and of German Christian Nazis.[8] From what source will pluralists
derive such criteria, except from their own religious and/or intellectual
traditions? Hence, the very heart of the pluralist impulse, to grant
autonomy and legitimacy to each of the major religions as "true revelations
in part," is undermined theoretically by the categories of judgment
employed by the pluralist in defining what is true; such criteria are
always "tradition specific." In other words, the pluralist, like the
exclusivist (as well as the inclusivist), cannot help but impose his or her
own standards on the other. D'Costa argued that there is no "wide neutral
pluralist platform on which to unite religions," whether philosophical or
practical/ethical.[9] Pluralism is just another stance that mistakenly
assumes "high ground" for itself clue to its broad tolerance, when in fact
this position is based on its own, ununiversalizable set of
truth-claims.[10]

How, then, might D'Costa explain Eck's dilemma? By continuing to use
Christian categories in her study and evaluation of other religions, Eck
cannot help but impose tradition-specific criteria on other traditions. The
result is that the position she says she is taking (pluralism) and the
stance suggested by the logic of her discourse do not cohere. The
difficulty that Eck has identified in her thought and writing is thus not a
failing or a weakness she can expect to correct in herself or her readers;
rather, it is an inevitability due to a category mistake, a skewed
conception of the issue that reflects the logical impossibility of
consistently articulating a pluralist view. D'Costa concluded that scholars
of religion would be far better off adopting a typology based on the
differing criteria for truth used to judge religions.[11]

While applauding D'Costa's efforts to purge pluralism of any pretensions to
be a super-system unconsciously imposing its standards, self-identified
pluralists are likely to be reluctant to accept the impossibility of their
position. Simply because one has difficulty articulating a position
consistently does not mean that it is not possible. However, D'Costa's
critique is not primarily based on such difficulties; it is grounded in the
very logic of the position itself. No doubt his article will generate
numerous creative responses, advancing the interests of mutual
understanding shared by Eck and D'Costa. One direction to which we may
productively turn in the effort to respond to the claim of the
impossibility of the pluralist view is India, a land with its own rich and
ancient philosophical traditions and its own history of wrestling with the
challenge of religious plurality.[12]

This essay examines some of the principles and thinkers from India, both
traditional and modern, who might be brought to bear on the issue of the
possibility of pluralism. Reflecting the religiously diverse composition of
India itself, these principles and thinkers will represent not only
Hinduism but Jainism and Buddhism as well.[13] These sources seem to concur
that a view of religions that grants autonomy and truth-status to
traditions other than one's own is possible in practice only if one
undergoes a spiritual ascesis as well as a fundamental transformation in
consciousness, the implications of which may be intimated beforehand but
cannot be lived consistently prior to that transformation. Specifically,
each source's understanding of itself in relation to other traditions must
be understood in reference to a common nexus of principles derived from
spiritual practice: a transformed experience of reality as comprised of
interdependent or mutually conditioning elements, a nonpossessive or
detached attitude toward one's own point of view, and a nonviolent approach
toward differing points of view.

These Indian sources also illustrate, however, the accuracy of D'Costa's
analysis of the logical impossibility of sustaining a pluralist view of the
religions, given that tradition-specific (or at least culture-specific)
criteria are applied by each to distinguish religion and irreligion.
Nevertheless, these Indian sources further suggest that the logical
inconsistencies in presenting a pluralist view of the religions reflect
ununiversalizable epistemological assumptions regarding the nature of
mental conditioning, specifically the constructivist view that all
perception and knowledge are indelibly shaped by the limitations of our
standpoint.[14] These assumptions lead D'Costa and others to impose
unconsciously their own set of culture-specific criteria on the data and to
reject on principle the possibility of even a temporary transcending of the
limits of one's point of view. Thus, these Indian sources demonstrate that
a pluralistic view is not primarily a theory subject to rules of logic but
is a vision grounded in spiritual discipline. That is, what is not possible
logically may indeed be realizable in practice.

                               II. The Buddha

Siddhartha Gautama (ca. 560-480 B.C.E.) was born in North India during a
time of religious ferment. He, like others of his time, rejected much of
the reigning Brahmanical worldview and corresponding social hierarchy. Yet,
while clear on the inadequacy of other doctrines, he discouraged attachment
to his own teachings. This attitude toward philosophical discourse is
grounded in his awakening to the interdependent nature of reality and is
closely related to his views on detachment (viraga) and nonviolence
(ahimsa). Suggestions are thus made by the Buddha on the nature of a
pluralist viewpoint and whether or not it is possible.

A. Pratityasamutpada or Conditioned Genesis

In simplest terms, the Buddha's intuition of the interdependent nature of
reality or conditioned genesis, received at the pinnacle of his
enlightenment beneath the Bo tree, is expressed thus: "If this is that
comes to be; from the arising of this that arises; if this is not that does
not come to be; from the stopping of this that is stopped."[15] There is
nothing that is independent or, put negatively, that is not dependent on
other conditioning factors. The Buddha, according to one contemporary
Buddhist interpreter, thus "shows the conditionality and dependent nature
of that uninterrupted flux of manifold physical and psychical phenomena of
existence conventionally called the ego, or man, or animal, etc."[16] When
one truly sees the irapermanence and relativity of all reality[17] in this
way, then one is, like the Buddha, awakened, and the suffering conditioned
by birth ends. Why do we not see things as mutually conditioned and
interdependent?

While it is antithetical to the Buddha's teaching on interdependence to
speak of a first cause of anything, he does identify ignorance as
fundamental to any explanation for why we misinterpret the nature of
reality. Most importantly, we are ignorant of the fact that, ultimately, we
are not distinct, abiding, or eternal selves but, rather, are each a
constantly changing combination of physical and mental elements.
Eventually, in the formula of conditioned genesis, this ignorance leads to
thirst or craving, which in turn necessarily leads to the suffering and
unsatisfactoriness that characterize the experience of the unawakened. When
this fundamental ignorance is removed by wisdom, specifically the insight
of conditioned genesis, then the cause of misperception and suffering is
removed. But, is such seeing possible?

While difficult to reach and perhaps necessitating numerous lifetimes of
attention, the goal of seeing things as they are in their interdependent
nature is nonetheless said to be possible, based on the Buddha's and
others' experience. Intriguing for the discussion of a pluralist point of
view is the fact that an accurate perception of realities does not entail a
totally objective grasp of the thing in itself, unaffected by other
objects. Rather, a true perception discloses the thing-in-relation, each
object itself being a constantly changing combination of elements in
ever-fluid relationships of mutual conditioning with other objects. The
kind of seeing the Buddha exemplifies would be integral to a pluralist
view: the ability to see elements both in their autonomy (without
projection) and in their irreducible interrelationship (without resorting
to mere plurality or relativism).[18]

B. Detachment and Nonviolence

Corollary to the Buddha's realization of interdependence are his teachings
on detachment (viraga) and nonviolence (ahimsa). "Viraga," literally
"fading away," is often paired with "nirodha" or "cessation" as alternative
names for the ultimate goal, or nirvana. Further defined as the absence of
craving or as dispassionateness, detachment--as used in the Buddha's
discourses--suggests not only a lack of desire for material objects but
also a "fading away" of passions of all kinds, including for one's own
religious viewpoint. This broad sense of detachment is informed by the
Buddha's account of what constitutes attachment or clinging (upadana):
sensuous clinging, clinging to views, to rules and ritual, and to belief in
an abiding self.[19] With respect to the second type of attachment, the
Buddha advised, "To be attached to one thing (to a certain view) and to
look clown upon other things (views) as inferior--this the wise men call a
fetter."[20] Hence, the Buddha used the famous simile of the raft for his
teaching. Like a raft, the teaching is a vehicle for crossing over and is
not to be held onto with attachment.[21]

A direct outcome of attachment is violence, understood as an expression of
craving and a striking out at what appears to be other, independent of
oneself. Nonviolence and the related virtues of lovingkindness (maitri) and
compassion (karuna) are the natural consequences of realizing the mutually
conditioned quality of all realities. From an ethical standpoint,
nonviolent intentions serve to prevent the accumulation of undesirable
consequences in the future. However, ahimsa is not simply an ethical
observance. It is significant that in the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path,
ahimsa appears as a characteristic of right thought, an element that, along
with right understanding, constitutes the category of wisdom according to
the traditional threefold division of the eight elements of the Path (the
other two categories being ethical conduct and mental discipline).[22]
Nonviolence as an aspect of wisdom, then, like conditioned genesis, is an
expression of "intuitive knowledge" rather than a conditioned moral
response, implying that such knowledge is not only the result of thinking
and learning but is also a fruit of mental development or meditation
(bhavana).[23]

The question of feasibility arises. Is it possible to be fully nonviolent,
based as this virtue is on full awareness of the interdependence of all
things? The Buddha suggests yes, though indicating that the determining
factor is not action itself but our intentions. While it may not be
possible in this life totally to avoid inflicting injury on any sentient
being, it is possible to purify the mind so that only life-supporting
intentions arise, thus reducing violence to others to a minimum. On the
possibility of the Buddha's teaching on nonviolence, one Buddhist ethicist
concludes: "[I]n Buddhism, the sacredness of life is an ultimate ethical
fact which is proved and made meaningful self-evidently, i.e., through
empathy."[24] That is, when one sees that one is not an isolated self and
that one is mutually dependent on all living beings, then one sees the
value of nonviolence as fact. To hurt another is to hurt oneself.

C. A Pluralist View of Religions?

What are the implications of the Buddha's teachings on conditioned genesis,
detachment, and nonviolence for one's view of other religious doctrines?
Does the Buddha himself fit the description of a pluralist? Buddhism is
often portrayed as unusually tolerant of other religions; no holy wars or
forced conversions have taken place in its name. This attitude is based on
the example of the Buddha himself and is expressed in his teachings. The
Buddha exhorted others to follow his path, not out of obedience or respect
but on the basis of their own testing of that path.[25] In addition, he
claimed that his teachings conveyed a truth about the nature of things that
existed whether or not someone like himself was there to see and express
it.[26] In other words, far from being a relativist, the Buddha identified
a timeless pattern or order that he sought to put into words in order to
help others see it also. Contemporary Buddhist scholar K. N. Jayatilleke
concluded:

This dispassionate and impartial but critical outlook, the causal
conception of the universe and the conception of the Buddha as a being who
discovers the operation of certain moral and spiritual laws and reveals
them to us, may be said to be the first plank on which Buddhist tolerance
rests.[27]

However, the Buddha's tolerance did not lead to an uncritical attitude
toward the value of other philosophical and religious viewpoints. He was
very specific in identifying false religions (abrahmacariyavasa) and those
that were unsatisfactory (anassasikam), based on specific criteria, such as
whether such religions taught "survival [after death], moral values,
freedom and responsibility, the non-inevitability of salvation."[28]
Nevertheless, these criteria and the view of life they circumscribe are,
according to Jayatilleke, "comprehensive enough to contain, recognise and
respect the basic truths of all higher religions," though no religion,
including Buddhism, has consistently lived up to these truths.[29]

A critical tolerance and an acceptance of truth in other religions
according to set criteria do not necessarily constitute a pluralist
viewpoint as defined above by Eck or D'Costa. Does the Buddha suggest that
his teachings comprise the "final and definitive truth," a truth that all
other teachings can only approximate? In one passage, for example, in
response to a request for his view on several important philosophies and
religions of his time, the Buddha simply answered that, if a religion
contains the Noble Eightfold Path in its teachings, then it will foster the
full realization of enlightenment; but, if that path is not contained in
its teachings, then it will be deficient.[30] Is the Noble Eightfold Path,
however, identical to what is calledes the Buddha's statement amount to an
inclusivist declaration that only Buddhism is complete, or, like the
above-stated criteria for a right view of life, is the Eightfold Path a
broad enough standard that teachings other than the Buddha's may meet up to
it? This issue is difficult to resolve, though D'Costa's suspicions about
the logical possibility of a pluralist viewpoint seem confirmed.[31] Does
an inescapable comparative habit of mind underlie the Buddha's approach to
other religions by virtue of his applying tradition-specific criteria?[32]

Contemporary Theravadin teacher Achaan Chah spoke to the issue of whether
comparison is characteristic of the awakened mind:

At times, we may feel that thinking is suffering, like a thief robbing us
of the present. What can we do to stop it? In the day, it is light; at
night, it is dark. Is this itself suffering? Only if we compare the way
things are now with other situations we have known and wish it were
otherwise. Ultimately things are just as they are-only our comparisons
cause us to suffer.[33]

Chah implied that we cannot stop thinking itself, though a particular style
of thought, that is, comparison, can be recognized as harmful, at least to
oneself if not also to others; its elimination is necessary if suffering is
to be removed and nirvana realized. He further suggested that the approach
to differences, whether of times of day or religions, found in the awakened
mind is not the same as what most of us experience in that it causes
suffering neither to ourselves nor to the other who is being compared.

Together, the three principles-conditioned genesis (pratityasamutpada),
detachment (viraga), and nonviolence (ahimsa) -- seem to support a
pluralist view, one grounded in the interdependence and contingency of all
realities, a detached attitude toward one's own standpoint, and a
nonviolent approach to other standpoints. One may ask whether any other
view of the religions is as consistent with these principles. In trying to
reconcile them with the Buddha's apparent inclusivism, it is important to
note that, for the Buddha, the interdependence of reality, detachment, and
nonviolence are not theories to be properly conceived or instructions for
thought and behavior. These teachings were understood as wisdom, as
realizations, graspable to some extent by the unawakened, but practicable
in a consistent manner and self-evident only to the awakened. Thus, while
the Buddha's position on other religions appears logically inconsistent, it
is said to be based on a quality of experience not available to all -- a
"seeing things as they are" or without distorting mediation from the
conditioned, comparative mind. Such a claim to special experience poses an
obstacle to accepting the possibility of a viewpoint that contradicts both
the laws of logic and the fundamental assumption that all knowledge is
mediated, an obstacle that is encountered in other Indian sources as well.

                                III. Jainism

Jainas trace the history of their lineage of teachers far back into
pre-history. However, their final and most historically identifiable
"Ford-maker" (Tirthankara) was Vardhamana, usually known by the honorific
title Mahavira ("Great Hero"), a contemporary of the Buddha in North India
during the sixth century B.C.E. Jainas seek liberation, in part, through
observance of five vows (against injury, falsehood, theft, unchastity, and
worldly attachment), after fulfilling which one becomes a "conqueror"
(jina), the title from which the name of the tradition is taken. As a
philosophy as well as a spiritual path, Jainism offers an intriguing
variation to Buddhism, each supporting its view of other traditions in
epistemological teachings, nonpossessiveness, and nonviolence.

A. Anekantavada or the Doctrine of Many-Sidedness[34]

An early Jaina text attributes the following statement to Mahavira: "Those
who praise their own faiths and ideologies and blame that of their
opponents and thus distort the truth will remain confined to the cycle of
birth and death."[35] While the theme of religious tolerance is apparent
here, as it was in the Buddha's similar warning quoted above, the further
observation is made that truth is distorted by such praise or blame,
thereby preventing progress on the path to liberation (compare what the
Buddha called a "fetter"). Such behavior is thus morally improper as a
violation of the vow to avoid all falsehood. On what epistemological basis
is such a judgment made?

While perhaps not fully developed in the time of Mahavira, the doctrine of
many-sidedness was clearly formulated at least by the twelfth century when
Hemacandra, a great Jaina scholar, composed An Examination in Thirty-Two
Stanzas of the Doctrines of Other Systems. "Anekantavada" literally means
the doctrine that no one viewpoint is to be taken as final, that is, as the
only true or all-comprehensive viewpoint. This doctrine is constituted by
an epistemological principle and a metaphysical claim.

The epistemological principle is that logically distinct viewpoints (nayas)
can be taken on any object of inquiry. That is, an object--for example, a
person -- may be seen as a specific entity in space and time, or generally
as a representative of a species, or as both specific and general at once,
or as a specific entity of the moment without regard to space and time.
Related to the principle of viewpoints is the "doctrine of maybe" or
conditional predication (syadvada). The most one can safely say is that
maybe or "in some respect" an element exists or is describable or is
eternal, because such a statement is relative to one's point of view. That
is, what exists within an object from one viewpoint may not from another.
For example, the same person may be seen as father, son, uncle, cousin,
friend; or the same room may seem warm to one but cold to another. Thus, no
one predication or statement about what is true about that object can
legitimately be upheld as final or all-comprehensive. Thus, truth is
many-sided.

The metaphysical claim within the doctrine of many-sidedness is that any
reality itself has many (an-eka, "not one") aspects or expresses itself in
manifold forms. In its wholeness, any reality is the coexistence of
contradictory elements, such as eternity and transience, or unity and
multiplicity? Thus, reality itself, not just truth, is many-sided,
preventing any absolute predication. The most that our perception and
language can convey is a partial reality; to assume that one particular
point of view, including a religious one, is final is indeed to hold as
absolute a limited picture of the real. Jaina teacher Siddhasena Divakara
drew together the epistemological and metaphysical principles of
anekantavada as follows:

All the nayas, therefore, in their exclusively individual standpoints are
absolutely faulty. If, however, they consider themselves as supplementary
to each other, they are right in their viewpoints.... [I]f all the nayas
arrange themselves in a proper way and supplement to each other, then alone
they are worthy of being termed as "the whole truth" or the right view in
its entirety.[37]

However, is it possible for any one person to gain this "right view"?

Such a complete understanding of reality, in spite of the limits of
standpoints and the manifold nature of reality, is indeed possible
according to the tradition. Mallisena stated simply, "[T]he many-sided
nature of an entity... is comprehensible to supremely intelligent
people."[38] Such intelligence or perfect knowledge (kevala) dawns as a
result of meditative concentration and of the systematic and thorough
purification of the eternal soul or self (jiva), eliminating all
obstructing influences from past experience (karmas). The knowledge, then,
of the liberated one (kevalin or jina) is of a different order than that
experienced and expressed by the unliberated. Such a person is qualified to
appreciate the relativity of all standpoints and, thus, lives the wisdom of
Mahavira's advice not to praise or blame, as Siddhasena Divakara described:
"A man who holds the view of the cumulative character of truth
(anekantajna) never says that a particular view is right or that a
particular view is wrong."[39] The all-determinative nature of one's point
of view is thus affirmed as a condition limiting all truth-claims, yet it
is a condition that the liberated one declares can be transcended.

B. Nonpossessiveness and Nonviolence

Mahavira's prescription against attachment of any kind is very clear: "He
who grasps at even a little, whether living or lifeless, or consents to
another doing so, will never be freed from sorrow."[40] Thus, the vow to
observe nonpossessiveness (aparigraha) is central to the Jaina path. To
grasp at or seek to possess any object is to assert one's superiority over
it and one's intention to dominate it, thus contradicting the related
principles of equanimity toward, and the mutuality of, all beings.[41]
While the observance ofaparigraha is usually interpreted in relation to
objects of the senses toward which one feels craving or aversion,
Mahavira's above statement suggests a greater scope, one that includes
ideas, beliefs, ideologies, and doctrines.[42]

Mahavira was equally uncompromising in his statements regarding nonviolence
(ahimsa), declaring it to be "the pure, eternal and unchangeable law or the
tenet of religion" taught by all sages of past, present, and future.[43]
Hence, nonviolence is the basis of all Jaina ethics and sometimes serves as
the distinguishing quality and contribution of this tradition, given how
totally one is supposed to observe it. Modern Jainas often note that ahimsa
is not simply a negative prescription against injury but includes,
according to the scriptures, the full range of virtues as well, including
peace and harmony.[44]

One of the most frequent questions asked of the Jaina ideal of nonviolence
is whether or not it is practicable. One contemporary Jaina writer
responded as follows:

Though Jainism sets its goal as the ideal of total nonviolence, external as
well as internal, yet the realisation of this ideal in the practical life
is by no means easy. Nonviolence is a spiritual ideal, which is fully
realisable only in the spiritual plane. The real life of an individual is a
physio-spiritual complex; at this level complete nonviolence is not
possible.... But this does not mean that the ideal of nonviolence is not
practicable and so it is not necessary for [the] human race.[45]

Like the goal of perfect knowledge, full fidelity to ahimsa is reserved for
the few souls who, in order to eliminate the inevitable injury done to
living beings through the most basic activities of living (bathing, eating,
walking), cease all such actions, fasting until death. Given the extremity
of this ultimate consequence of the doctrine of nonviolence, it is
remarkable that ahimsa has served as the core teaching of Jainism for over
2,500 years.

C. A Pluralist View of Religions?

Is it valid to draw a connection between the Jains principles of the
many-sidedness of truth (anekantavada), nonpossessiveness (aparigraha), and
nonviolence (ahimsa) and this tradition's view of other religions? Though,
as suggested above, there is a logical link between the latter two
principles and one's attitude toward other faiths, there is little explicit
connection made by Jainas themselves.[46] In the case of the doctrine of
many-sidedness, Jainas do emphasize its relevance for the modern discussion
of the relationship between the religions. For example, Sagarmal Jain has
written:

Jaina theory of anekantavada emphasises that all the approaches to
understand the reality give partial but true picture[s] of reality and due
to their truth-value from certain angle[s], we should have a regard for
other's ideologies and faiths. Thus anekantavada forbids us to be dogmatic
and one-sided in our approach. It preaches ... a broader outlook and
openmindedness, which is more essential in solving the conflicts due to the
differences in ideologies and faiths.[47]

By this account, at least, Jainism does seem to teach a pluralist view of
the religions, one based on the recognition that truth is not the sole
property of any one tradition and, thus, on the need to be open to other
viewpoints in one's search to know that truth. Yet, Jainism, like Buddhism,
can appear ambiguous in its application of these principles toward other
religions, especially from the perspective of logical possibility developed
by D'Costa.

Like the Buddha who discouraged the passing of judgment on other
philosophies, yet set out definite criteria to evaluate such teachings,
Jainas also engage in the critique of "other systems"; indeed, this is the
context of Hemacandra's discourse on anekantavada. While embracing a
plurality of valid points of view on an object of inquiry, Hemacandra
clearly rejected as "false standpoints" those that conceive of themselves
as final or absolute, that is, those that contradict the doctrine of
many-sidedness. For example, if one claims that an object of inquiry "does
exist," implying the unqualified falsehood of stating its nonexistence,
then one is championing only a partial truth; according to Mallisena's
commentary, this "path of false standpoints" should be avoided.[48] Thus,
among the Jainas' detailed analysis of the attitudes that bind the eternal
soul (riva) is "extremism" (ekanta) or "taking a one-sided (eternalist or
annihilationist) position about the nature of existents." However, among
the same category of insight-deluding attitudes one also finds
"indiscriminate open-mindedness (vainayika), that is, accepting all
religious paths as equally correct when in fact they are not."[49] Critical
standards for the evaluation of religious viewpoints are clearly sustained.

Here, again, we encounter the apparent contradiction and exclusivist logic
that render contemporary pluralism "impossible" for D'Costa. Based on the
doctrine of many-sidedness, Jainas espouse the partial validity of multiple
standpoints on objects of inquiry; yet, if one's view includes the claim
that it is final, then that standpoint is rejected as "false." In other
words, as D'Costa has suggested, a tradition-specific criterion of truth
(that is, anekantavada) has been set up that does not allow for the
unbiased evaluation of other religious viewpoints. In addition, like the
Buddha, Jainas offer an appeal to special experience, that of the liberated
person with perfect knowledge, in order to support further their own
super-system as the right view.

Thus, Jaina pluralism, if that is a fair ascription, appears subject to the
same logical inconsistencies identified by D'Costa in contemporary
expressions of this position. Jainism, like Buddhism, suggests that this
inconsistency may be resolved by the transformation of consciousness
brought about through spiritual practice, reaching toward a state in which
a plurality of standpoints can be affirmed consistently, while adhering to
broad criteria of truth revealed through direct experience. While the
narrowly comparative nature of the mind may be fully transcended only by
the liberated one, Jaina teachings offer a strategy for controlling for the
cognitive limitations of the unliberated.

                                 IV. Gandhi

The dilemma raised by the Buddhist and Jaina attitudes toward other
religions and clarified by D'Costa's analysis of contemporary pluralists is
at heart a conflict between two impulses equally fundamental to the human
quest for a meaningful existence: the search for unity (both intellectual
and existential), that is, for a principle of synthesis that will unify all
diversity into a coherent whole; and the urge to be true to our own
experience in all its particularity, fostering the vocation to represent
our own symbol, theory, criteria, or standpoint.[50] Contemporary Christian
theologian Langdon Gilkey has described "the theoretical dilemma that
plurality has forced upon us" as follows: "There seems no consistent
theological way to relativize and yet to assert our own symbols--and yet we
must do both in dialogue."[51]

Gilkey's insight into how to work with the dilemma posed by plurality
serves as a useful point of departure for an examination of Gandhi's
contribution to the question of the possibility of a pluralist viewpoint.
Drawing from a principle expressed by nineteenth-century American
philosopher John Dewey, Gilkey concluded as follows regarding the challenge
of embracing the autonomy and validity of other standpoints while remaining
committed to our own:

What to reflection is a contradiction, to praxis is a workable dialectic, a
momentary but creative paradox. Absolute and relative, unified vision and
plurality, a centered principle of interpretation and mere difference,
represent polarities apparently embodiable in crucial practice despite the
fact that they seem numbing in reflective theory.[52]

Visible and recent examples of such practice, of living out the "creative
paradox," are few. In particular, the lives of the Buddha, Mahavira, and
India's other great sages are often distant and the sources about them
unreliable. However, the life of Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948) provides a
clearer and more public illustration, suggesting a resolution in praxis of
the pluralist's dilemma that may indeed underlie the two positions
described above. Far from merely giving intellectual assent to the
principles of the many-sidedness of truth, nonpossessiveness, and
nonviolence, Gandhi sought to base his every action on them, resulting in
an approach to life he called "satyagraha."[53]

A. Satyagraha or Holding on to Truth

In the struggles for recognition of the equal rights of Indians in South
Africa and later for self-rule in India, Gandhi rejected both violent
resistance and passive submission to injustice. To adopt either tactic
implies an unwillingness to enter into relationship with the oppressor and
results only in the perpetuation of violence. In reading accounts of
Gandhi's efforts to defeat injustice through nonviolent means, one is
struck by his frequent attempts to get to know the perpetrators and
understand their point of view. 54 By making this step, he demonstrated his
faith in a reality greater than the viewpoint of either, what he called,
using a Sanskrit term from his tradition, "satya" (truth). By suffering the
consequences, for example, of violating what one believes is an unjust law,
one remains both true to one's own viewpoint and in dialogue with the
other, prompting the lawmakers to search their own consciences. Holding on
to truth, for Gandhi, was not merely a successful legal or political
strategy; it was a spiritual attitude as well. "Truth" was the most
meaningful name of God for Gandhi, and thus satyagraha translates into, and
in practice must be based on, faith in "some Supreme Power or some Being
even indefinable."[55]

How Gandhi applied the principles of satyagraha to his relationship with
non-Hindus is well demonstrated in his writings on Christianity, recently
collected in Gandhi on Christianity.[56] Just as Gandhi sought to learn
about other points of view in the legal and political spheres, so he also
believed that an erapathetic and serious study of non-Hindu religions is "a
sacred duty" in that it broadened his understanding of the one Truth that
each tradition seeks in its own way.[57] Study of other religions was both
necessary and enlightening, according to Gandhi, because no religion
succeeds in conveying the entirety of Truth:

If we had attained the full vision of Truth, we would no longer be mere
seekers, but would have become one with God, for Truth is God. But being
only seekers, we prosecute our quest, and are conscious of our
imperfection. And if we are imperfect ourselves, religion as conceived by
us must also be imperfect.[58]

Gandhi was close here to the Jaina doctrine of many-sidedness: No single
standpoint is perfect; hence, one must study the Truth from a number of
them.[59]

Holding on to the Truth that transcends any particular religious expression
of it did not, for Gandhi, entail a reduction in his commitment to his own
religious viewpoint. For example, he could affirm on the one hand, "Truth
is the same in all religions though, through refraction, it appears for the
time being variegated even as light does through a prism."[60] On the other
hand, he could also attest: "My respectful study of other religions has not
abated my reverence for or my faith in the Hindu scriptures.... They have
enabled me to understand more clearly many an obscure passage in the Hindu
scriptures."[61] To one who has not studied scriptures other than one's
own, such a claim may seem counter-intuitive. If one admits that one can
learn of God outside of one's tradition, how can this help but diminish
one's commitment? Gandhi's claim, nonetheless, rests on a life of unusual
integrity.[62]

B. Nonviolence[63] and the Criticism of Irreligion

Gandhi's broad religious tolerance as an expression of satyagraha did not
lead to the rejection of criteria for evaluating different traditions. The
fact that every religious standpoint is imperfect necessitates mutual
efforts to recognize those imperfections and to correct them. Religion is,
therefore, "always subject to a process of evolution and
reinterpretation,"[64] but how do we decide on the proper criteria for
evaluating diverse standpoints? Gandhi, like the Buddha and the Jaina
philosophers before him, felt quite certain that such criteria exist and
that they can be expressed in a way that does not do an injustice to other
religions. The foremost of these criteria was nonviolence (ahimsa).

That there is a connection between Gandhi's approach to non-Hindu religions
and the practice of nonviolence is clear: "Ahimsa teaches us to entertain
the same respect for the religious faiths of others as we accord to our
own."[65] It is also apparent that nonviolence was one of the criteria by
which Gandhi distinguished between religion and irreligion, along with
adherence to truth, reason, and faith, which he described as a kind
of"sixth sense."[66] One must remember that for Gandhi, as for the Jainas,
ahimsa is not simply a prohibitive stricture; it is "the largest love,
[the] greatest charity."[67] He thus also spoke of a "Law of Love" that
must guide all our interactions with others, including those who seem
opposed to us.[68] On the basis of these criteria he was strongly critical
of Christianity, for example, especially for its history of being "an
imperialist faith," violating the nonviolent spirit embodied by Jesus
himself and taught in the Sermon on the Mount.[69]

Gandhi anticipated the question of whether his criteria for distinguishing
religion from irreligion were simply imposed from his own Hindu point of
view. While admitting that his belief in ahimsa derived from the Bhagavad
Gita, a great Hindu scripture, as well as from Jaina and Buddhist sources,
he maintained that nonviolence -- or, in its more positive expression, love
-- is of the very nature of God and is thus attested to by all the major
scriptures, though not always observed in the religions founded on
them.[70] Claiming, like Mahavira, that ahimsa is a truly timeless
standard, Gandhi wrote, "Nonviolence is the law of our species," and it is
"the goal towards which all mankind moves naturally though
unconsciously."[71] Like the Buddha and the Jaina philosophers, Gandhi
believed that his criteria for distinguishing between religion and
irreligion were universal, though expressed by him primarily in the
language of his tradition. His awareness of how language limits truth was
keen:

Even as a tree has a single trunk, but many branches and leaves, so is
there one true and perfect Religion, but it becomes many, as it passes
through the human medium. The one Religion is beyond all speech. Imperfect
men put it into such languages as they can command, and their words are
interpreted by other men equally imperfect. Whose interpretation is to be
held to be the right one?[72]

Nevertheless, also like the Buddha and the Jaina philosophers, Gandhi
believed it necessary and possible to use speech to set forth an
authoritative interpretation, balancing his appeals for nonviolent
approaches to other traditions with nonpossessive attitudes toward his own.
Is Gandhi, like the other Indian sources we have examined, simply
contradicting himself in his use of linguistically bound criteria?

C. On the Possibility of a Pluralist Viewpoint

In response to Gandhi's claims for ahimsa, a Christian clergyperson asked
him whether he believed that Hinduism was a "synthesis of all
religions."[73] Gandhi's response is revealing:

"Yes, if you will. But I would call that synthesis Hinduism, and for you
the synthesis will be Christianity. If I did not do so, you would always be
patronizing me, as many Christians do now, saying, 'How nice it would be if
Gandhi accepted Christianity,' and Muslims would be doing the same saying,
'How nice it would be if Gandhi accepted Islam!' That immediately puts a
barrier between you and me. Do you see that?"[74]

Here is Gandhi in the midst of the praxis of dialogue to which Gilkey
refers as a possible locus for resolving the dilemma caused by remaining
open to the validity of other religious standpoints while maintaining the
efficacy of one's own. In acknowledging his sense of the comprehensiveness
of his own tradition, he recognized that his dialogue partner probably felt
the same about Christianity. Very clear that he had "to stand somewhere,"
he attempted to help his partner see that to try to convert the other to
stand where we are erects "a barrier" between them. Was Gandhi thus
implying that any attempt to conflate viewpoints in the context of dialogue
is a violation of the law of nonviolence or love?

Essential to Gandhi's theory and practice of satyagraha and interreligious
dialogue was the question of practical possibility. Gandhi was criticized
by himself and by others early on in his application of satyagraha to
India's struggle for self-rule because he overestimated the capacity of
most people to engage in peaceful civil disobedience.[75] In order to be
able to befriend the other and see a situation from her or his vantage
point, and in order to be able to respond to the other with love even when
the other uses violence, one must have made progress in observing the five
vows: of nonviolence (ahimsa), nonpossessiveness (aparigraha), purity or
celibacy (brahmacarya), truthfulness (satya), and nonstealing or poverty
(asteya). Without adherence to these vows, as well as faith in the divine,
one should not begin on the spiritual experiment that is satyagraha in any
sphere of life, whether political or religious.[76] Thus, by Gandhi's
estimation, a nonviolent attitude toward the other, whether the British
government or Christianity, was not easy to practice; he frequently
admitted his own failures. Nevertheless, the ideal remains of inestimable
value and plays an unexpendable role in human society.[77]

D'Costa's analysis prompts a different question in response to Gandhi's
approach to non-Hindu religions, that of logical possibility. Was Gandhi
simply following the strategy already identified in the Buddha and Jainism
whereby particular criteria of truth, derived from their own experience or
tradition, were exulted as universal, contradictory to the claims of each
to an open attitude toward other religious viewpoints?[78] That Gandhi's
efforts to face the dilemma posed by plurality were similar to those of the
Buddha and the Jainas seems clear, but is there a different way to
interpret the logic behind these efforts than that suggested by D'Costa?

Gandhi shed light on what this alternative "logic" might be in his
comparison to a marriage of one's relationship to one's religion--or, more
generally, to one's point of view:

[J]ust as a husband does not remain faithful to his wife, or wife to her
husband, because either is conscious of some exclusive superiority of the
other over the rest of his or her sex but because of some indefinable but
irresistible attraction, so does one remain irresistibly faithful to one's
own religion and find full satisfaction in such adhesion. And just as a
faithful husband does not need in order to sustain his faithfulness, to
consider other women as inferior to his wife, so does not a person
belonging to one religion need to consider others to be inferior to his
own.[79]

On the basis of a loving commitment, like that of a marriage, one may
approach another in a way that is not based on comparison or competition.
One's love for wife, child, parent, or friend can lead one to appreciate
others more fully and even to love them- a love that at the same time does
not reduce one's commitments.

It is also clear from Gandhi's discussion of the marriage analogy that
agapic or inclusive love is not without criteria for judging between
strengths and weaknesses in either one's spouse (religion, point of view)
or in others:

[E]ven as faithfulness to one's wife does not presuppose blindness to her
shortcomings, so does not faithfulness to one's religion presuppose
blindness to the shortcomings of that religion. Indeed, faithfulness, not
blind adherence, demands a keener perception of shortcomings and therefore
a livelier sense of the proper remedy for their removal.[80] It is well
documented that Gandhi was as critical of Hinduism as he was of some
aspects of non-Hindu religions, especially its tacit collaboration with the
institution of untouchability, the practice of animal sacrifice by some
sects, and the bazaar-like atmosphere of some temples. As with his wife,
however, his application of particular standards to criticize his religion
and others did not entail a break in his relationship to that religion but,
rather, constituted the faithful exercise of it.

If there is a "logic," then, to Gandhi's attitude toward other religions,
it is that of noncompetitive interpersonal relationship.[81] According to
this logic, love for one nurtures the capacity and openness to love
another, and evaluation of both by specific criteria of truth does not
diminish that love but is a sign of its health. Here the question of
practical possibility, as addressed by each of the Indian sources, becomes
relevant. How many of us are actually able to love another in the way
implied by Gandhi's practice of satyagraha and dialogue? As each of the
Indian sources has suggested, the changed view of reality and attributes of
nonviolence and nonpossessiveness that are integral to the ideals they
portray are indeed not commonly found characteristics. One must submit to a
discipline, follow a path, and be transformed in order to approach these
ideals. If we can justifiably express the core of this transformation, it
is the awareness of interdependence, an awareness that necessitates a
radical change in our sense of self, what Gandhi calls reducing ourself "to
a zero"[82] --suggesting, as the Buddhist and Jaina sources have, that it
is possible to transcend the limits of one's own viewpoint. Without
undergoing this degree of transformation, we find the logic behind the
approaches to other religions espoused by these Indian sources to be
inconsistent. In other words, is the fact that the logic of the pluralist
view of religions seems to most of us faulty or unworkable necessarily a
reason to deem it unsatisfactory or "impossible"?[83]

         V. Conclusion: A Pluralist View in the Praxis of Dialogue

The above examination of a few Indian sources suggests the following
conclusions regarding the possibility, both logical and practical, of a
pluralist view of religions. Each source presents a similar nexus of ideas
informing their perspective on the issue: a view of reality as constituted
by mutually related and interdependent elements, a nonpossessive or
detached attitude toward one's own point of view, and a nonviolent approach
toward differing points of view. The consequences of these ideas for their
stand on other religious traditions are, respectively, acknowledgement of
the relativity of truth statements, recognition that one's own viewpoint or
tradition is not the only valid approach to truth, and an openness to, and
affirmation of the legitimate autonomy of, other viewpoints or traditions.
Each Indian source thereby suggests a pluralist view of reality, including
the religions.

In addition, each source discussed above grounds its pluralist viewpoint on
guidelines for transforming human consciousness. That is, the practical
possibility of the pluralist view is upheld on the condition that one
submit to a spiritual discipline that will fundamentally alter the basis
for what is possible, both cognitively and morally. Without this kind of
thoroughgoing change in the holder of a standpoint, the view of reality and
virtues of detachment and nonviolence either will be misunderstood or will
seem unattainable. In response to the question of practical possibility,
each tradition would lift up examples of saints who have walked their
respective paths of spiritual transformation and verified within their
persons that these goals are not empty ideals.

However, it is equally true that each source has developed specific
criteria for distinguishing between true and false religion and has, with
confidence, applied these criteria to other points of view. D'Costa's
suspicions about the logical possibility of consistently presenting a
pluralist view of the religions thus seem confirmed. In the case of each
Indian source, it seems that tradition-specific (or, perhaps collectively,
culture-specific) criteria are being applied, using a similar strategy as
the exclusivist and inclusivist: If the other viewpoint does not fit the
criteria that I or my tradition claim to be universal, then that viewpoint
is false or unsatisfactory. In some cases, despite conscious efforts to
avoid this kind of imposition, the pluralist view itself serves as the
standard by which all others are measured.

As proposed above, in the logic of each Indian source there is an intimate
connection between the issues of practical and logical possibility. Similar
to the tactic for resolution proposed by Gilkey, each source directs
attention to praxis, especially the observance of a vow of nonviolence,
implying that what cannot be consistently reasoned out can in fact be lived
in the context of interpersonal relationship or dialogue. However, does
such a claim to transcend the logic of rationality simply beg the question?
Does this appeal to special experience reduce the thrust of such proposals
to private relevance and thereby diminish their contribution to the
collective task of understanding religion or eventides quaerens
intellecturn? Philosophically -- perhaps, depending on how one construes
the limits of this discipline; religiously and spiritually -- no. Is not
this kind of transformation constitutive of the very premises of most, if
not all, religions and spiritual paths?

One way of investigating what type of special experience is being suggested
as a support for a pluralist view of the religions would be to attempt to
generalize what is common to the transformed states attested to by the
above sources. Such a task is not only monumental in content but also
fraught with methodological difficulties, not the least of which is the
danger of, once again, imposing standards or categories specific to one
culture or tradition on the others. A safer and more useful approach will
be to examine one experience of a pluralist way of seeing in order to
determine what it suggests for further study of this knotty problem.

In Encountering God, Eck recounted an experience in a Hindu temple in India
that is especially revealing of the cognitive dynamics involved in seeing
another tradition from a pluralist viewpoint. Eck recalled how, near the
end of a research trip, she visited the great Vaishnava temple of
Padmanabhaswamy in Trivandrum. At the time set for beholding the central
image of the temple, she stood with hundreds of other women at the doors of
the inner sanctum. Accompanied by the rising sounds of drums and bells, the
priests opened successively three sets of double doors, revealing portions
of a huge statue of Vishnu at rest on the endless world serpent (Shesha).
"It was a sense of enormous presence," she wrote, "dimly seen":[84] his
face of silent repose, his navel out of which the creator god and all
creation manifests, and his feet, traditionally a focus of veneration in
Hinduism.

After the priests had circled oil lamps before the image of Vishnu, the
worshippets, including Eck, reached out toward the flame and then brought
their hands to their foreheads in blessing. She reflected on the experience
as follows:

Seeing that tryptich [sic] in the temple in Trivandrum, with its three
glimpses of a God larger than one could fully comprehend, was a moment of
recognition for me, and the experience of God's presence there was
describable only as worship. My experience as a Christian was surely
different from that of the Hindus pressed against me on either side. But we
shared the sense of delight and revelation as the doors were opened. and
perhaps some sense of both the majesty and mystery of the Divine.[85]

As she noted, an experience of recognition implies that something of the
same reality has been seen elsewhere before, through other "windows," other
symbols, other points of view.

Some interaction between the points of view through which one has seen a
reality inevitably results, but only after the fact, according to Eck's
account:

I thought of nothing at the time. It was a moment of total presence, not of
reflection. But as I left the temple, looking frequently back through door
upon door, light and shadow, in the direction of Vishnu resting upon the
serpent called Endless, I began thinking about what we Christians call the
Trinity, the threefold vision of God as creator, redeemer, and spirit. I
could not get it out of my mind -- this triple yet singular revelation of
the one God, the glimpses we had through the doors that were opened upon
his presence, the overwhelming sense that no vantage point could enable us
to see the whole.[86]

The immensity of the divine image in the temple, symbolizing the
incomprehensibility of God, resonated with and clarified, "challenged and
enlarged" her sense of the divine received from her own tradition.[87]

A response such as Eck's is only conceivable if one accepts, perhaps
subliminally, the possibility that one's "vantage point" is not
all-encompassing. Yet, it is precisely one's viewpoint, with its
tradition-specific criteria, that has mediated a sense of the divine to
begin with:

Each of us brings religious or ethical criteria to our understanding of the
new worlds we encounter. When I "recognize" God's presence in a Hindu
temple or in the life of a Hindu, it is because, through this complex of
God, Christ, and Spirit, I have a sense of what God's presence is like.
Recognition means that we have seen it somewhere before. I would even say
that it is Christ who enables Christians-in fact, challenges us-to
recognize God especially where we don't expect to do so and where it is not
easy to do so.[88]

Eck's account suggests that one may be simultaneously established in a
religious viewpoint, with its criteria of truth, and open to experiencing
the divine, however briefly ("a moment"), through other symbols or other
viewpoints.[89] In other words, the fact that we have criteria does not
necessarily entail a possessive attitude toward them or the "violent"
imposition of those criteria on every encounter with the other.

Eck readily acknowledged that such experiences of recognition are not easy
to receive; they do not necessarily follow from intellectual assent to the
proposition that all visions of God are alike, for they are not.[90] Such
experiences, she wrote, "can only be the fruit of a real encounter. There
are no easy, uncritical theological equations here. Yet as we are open to
real encounter in the give-and-take of learning and un-learning our
recognition of the one we call 'God' can only become larger and
clearer."[91] As Gilkey and others have proposed and as Gandhi has
illustrated, the pluralist view, which reason cannot argue with full
logical consistency, may be experienced in the interreligious encounter, in
the dialogical relationship that itself constitutes a kind of ascesis.

With the Jaina philosophers we are drawn to affirm that the same position
both is and is not valid: That is, from one standpoint D'Costa is correct
about the impossibility of a pluralist view of religions. His analysis does
indeed clear the way for a more precise understanding of what pluralism is
and is not. If, however, we also take into consideration the standpoint of
interreligious dialogue, then the possibility of such a view of religions
is affirmed. Perhaps addressing the problem of language discussed at the
opening of this essay, Eck wrote:

There is a dilemma here, for to some extent all religious people are
inclusivists insofar as we use our own particular religious language --God,
Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Buddha, Vishnu-and struggle with the
limits and meaning of that language. As long as we hold the religious
insights of our particular traditions, cast in our particular languages, to
be in some sense universal, we cannot avoid speaking at times in an
inclusivist way.[92]

I would venture further to suggest that even those who according to Indian
sources are awakened or liberated--who have experienced nirvana, kevala, or
moksha--also fit this description of pluralist in vision and inclusivist in
language and logic. This may be due to the fact that even those whose
consciousness has been spiritually transformed must live out that
realization within particular cultural contexts and linguistic commitments.
On the one hand, persons like the Buddha, Mahavira, or Gandhi, grounded in
that which is universal, are pluralist, affirming the autonomy and
relativity of both self and other. On the other hand, living through that
which is particular, they remain inclusivist and committed to their point
of view and potentially critical of others' --Gilkey's "creative paradox."

Contradictory to the epistemological limits assumed by constructivist
philosophers, India upholds the possibility of transcending the comparative
mind and the constraints of one's point of view, an experience that fosters
a detached attitude toward it and a nonviolent approach toward others. The
experience attested to by these Indian sources may indeed appear "special"
and an illegitimate warrant for defending the illogical. Nevertheless, this
is precisely one of the challenges consistently offered by Indian
philosophers and sages, the existence of other states of consciousness
characterized by different epistemological conditions, states in which the
relation between the parts (points of view) and the whole (many-sided
truth) is seen more synthetically.[93] As Gandhi's life suggests, that
challenge may be answered at present, in part, through the spiritual
ascesis that is interreligious relationship.

1 Diana L. Eck, Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to
Banaras (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1993).

2 Ibid, p. 168.

3 Ibid., p. 170

4 Gavin D'Costa, "The Impossibility of a Pluralist View of Religion,"
Religious Studies 32 (June, 1996): 223-232. See also Gavin D'Costa, preface
to Gavin D'Costa, ed., Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered: The Myth of a
Pluralistic Theology of Religions, Faith Meets Faith Series (Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis Books, 1990), p. ix.

5 D'Costa, "Impossibility," p. 224.

6 Ibid, p. 223.

7 Ibid., pp. 225-226.

8 Ibid., p. 226.

9 Ibid., p. 231.

10 Ibid., p. 225. See also Jurgen Moltmann, "Is 'Pluralistic Theology'
Useful for the Dialogue of World Religions?" in D'Costa, Christian
Uniqueness, p. 155.

11 D'Costa, "Impossibility," p. 226.

12 See Harold G. Coward, ed., Modern Indian Responses to Religious
Pluralism (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1987). On the
particular contribution of India to the subject of pluralism, Coward wrote
in his introduction, "India is probably the world's oldest and most
interesting 'living laboratory' of religious pluralism" (p. xi).

13 A more thorough account of Indian sources would include discussion of
such Muslims as the sixteenth-century Mughal ruler, Jalal-ud-din Muhammad
Akbar, who exemplified a rare degree of religious tolerance and openness to
learning from other traditions. See also R. E. Miller, "Modern Indian
Muslim Responses," in Coward, Modern Indian Responses, pp. 235-268; and
Harold Coward, Pluralism: Challenge to World Religions (Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis Books, 1985), pp. 55-59.

14 For clear statements of the constructivist position, see John Hick,
"Religious Faith as Experiencing-As," in Talk of God, Royal Institute of
Philosophy Lectures, vol. 2, 1967-1968 (London: Macmillan; New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1969), pp. 20-35; and Ian Barbour, Myths, Models, and
Paradigms: A Comparative Study in Science and Religion (San Francisco, CA:
HarperSanFrancisco, 1974), pp. 51-56.

15 Samyutta-nikaya II, 64-65 (tr. from Edward Conze with I. B. Horner, D.
Snellgrove, and A. Waley, eds, Buddhist Texts through the Ages, Harper
Torchbooks [New York: Harper & Row, 1964], p. 66). The technical
formulation of conditioned genesis in reference to experience is as
follows: "Conditioned by ignorance are the karma-formations; conditioned by
the karma-formations is consciousness; conditioned by consciousness is
mind-and-body; conditioned by mind-andbody are the six sense-fields;
conditioned by the six sense-fields is impression; conditioned by
impression is feeling; conditioned by feeling is craving; conditioned by
craving is grasping [upadana]; conditioned by grasping is becoming;
conditioned by becoming is birth; conditioned by birth there come into
being ageing and dying, grief, sorrow, suffering, lamentation and despair.
Thus is the origin of this whole massof suffering" (Vinaya-pi.taka, I, 1;
in Conze, Buddhist Texts, p. 66).

16 Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and
Doctrines, 4th rev. ed., ed. Nyanaponika (Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist
Publication Society, 1980), pp. 150-151.

17 On the appropriateness of the term "relativity" to describe the Buddha's
intuition in conditioned genesis, see Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha
Taught (New York: Grove Press, 1959), p. 53; and Raimundo Panikkar, The
Silence of God: The Answer of the Buddha, Faith Meets Faith Series
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), pp. 53-57, 134-144, where he contrasts
relativity and relativism.

18 As others have observed, the later Mahayana teaching on emptiness
(sunyata), especially as espoused by the second/third-century Indian
philosopher Nagarjuna, advances analysis of conditioned genesis as well as
of the status of the Buddha's teachings in relation to other systems. See
Shohei Ichimura, "Sunyata and Religious Pluralism," in Paul O. Ingram and
Frederick J. Streng, eds., Buddhist. Christian Dialogue: Mutual Renewal and
Transformation (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1986), pp.
95-114; Coward, Pluralism, pp. 88-93; and Jane Compson, "The Dalai Lama and
the World Religions: A False Friend?" Religious Studies 32 (June, 1996):
271-279.

19 On the meanings of "upadana" and "viraga" see Nyanatiloka, Buddhist
Dictionary, pp. 215-216, 232.

20 Suttanipata, v. 798 (in Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, p. 10;
parenthetical additions are his).

21 Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, pp. 11-12, citing Majjhima-nikaya I,
134-135. For further analysis of the Buddha's view of the pragmatic or
instrumental role of doctrines, see Coward, Pluralism, pp. 96-97; cf. the
Dalai Lama's discussion of doctrines as tools in Compson, "Dalai Lama."

22 Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, pp. 45-50. "Ahimsa" is defined more
generally as harmlessness or noninjury and is listed as one of the three
characteristics of right thought (one of the elements of the Buddha's Noble
Eightfold Path). In addition, nondestruction of life is listed as one
characteristic of right action, another element of the path. See also
Dhammapada, 225,261, 270, 300.

23 Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary, p. 144.

24 Gunapala Dharmasiri, Fundamentals of Buddhist Ethics (Antioch, CA:
Golden Leaves, 1989), p. 21.

25 See his advice to the Kalamas, Anguitara-nikaya I, 189.

26 Samyutta-nikaya II, 25: "Whether Tathagatas [a synonym for Buddhas]
arise or not, this order [Dhamma] exists, namely, the fixed nature of
phenomena, the regular pattern of phenomena or conditionality. This the
Tathagata discovers and comprehends; having discovered and comprehended it,
he points it out, teaches it, lays it down, establishes, reveals, analyzes,
clarifies it and says, 'Look'" (in Coward, Pluralism, p. 85).

27 K. N. Jayatilleke, The Buddhist Attitude toward Other Religions, Wheel
Publications 216 (Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publications Society, 1975),
pp. 17-36; quoted in Paul J. Griffiths, ed., Christianity through
Non-Christian Eyes, Faith Meets Faith Series (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.
1990), p. 143.

28 Griffiths, Christianity, pp. 145-146, citing Majjhima-nikaya I, 515-520.

29 Ibid., p. 146.

30 Ibid., p. 147, citing Digha-nikaya II, 151. The Noble Eightfold Path
taught by the Buddha is comprised of right understanding, thought, speech,
action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration.

31 Compson identified a similar conflict in statements of the current Dalai
Lama about other religions. On the one hand, he has expressed what appears
to be a pluralist view, by affirming the value of different religions as
varied paths to achieve compassion and by discouraging conversion; on the
other hand, he has affirmed that the Mahayana teaching on emptiness (which
Compson characterized as "ideas which are exclusive to Buddhism") is the
"ultimate truth" that must be realized for liberation. Compson concluded:
"Rather than being a pluralism of the Christian variety, apparently
entailing a certain amnesty in terms of philosophical beliefs, his
ecumenism is entirely in accordance with the Buddhist teachings that he
follows. Whilst his ecumenical view does indeed require some 'letting go'
of dogmatic attachment to doctrines, this relinquishing is actually part of
his Buddhist philosophy. It is a Buddhist, rather than a pluralist way of
looking at the world" (Compson, "Dalai Lama," pp. 273-274). In other words,
tolerance -- even acceptance -of other religions is a tradition-specific
criterion brought to the evaluation of other traditions, not a
relinquishing of such criteria.

32 If one were truly detached and nonviolent, would one refrain from
criticizing others and simply assume an all-accepting attitude? The Buddha
obviously concluded otherwise. It is also noteworthy that several of the
most ardent Christian pluralists have defended the role of criticism in
their encounter with other religions, a conclusion that we shall see was
also shared by other Indian sources. The Buddha's teachings on both
detachment and nonviolence help to define the spirit in which criticisms
should be made. They should not be based in the feeling either that one's
own path is superior or that the other's is inferior. Yet, is not every act
of criticism based on comparison that in turn employs criteria of
evaluation that are inevitably tradition-specific?

33 Achaan Chah, A Still Forest Pool: The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah
(Wheaton, IL: Quest, 1985), p. 35.

34 For more technical and detailed treatment of this topic, see R. A.
Kumar, T. M. Dak, and A.D. Mishra, eds., Anekantavada and Syadvada (Ladnun,
Rajasthan: Jain Vishva Bharati Institute, 1996); Padmanabh S. Jaini, The
Jaina Path of Purification (Berkeley, CA; Los Angeles; London: University
of California Press, 1979), pp. 89-97; Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Indian
Philosophy, vol. 1 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1966), pp. 294-308; S. Gopalan,
Outlines of Jainisrn (New York: Halsted Press, 1973), pp. 145-156; and
Satkari Mookerjee, The Jaina Philosophy of Non-Absolutism (Calcutta:
Bharati Mahavidyalaya, 1944; 2nd ed.--Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1978).

35 Sutrakrtanga, 1.1.2.23, as quoted in Sagarmal Jain, "A Search for the
Possibility of NonViolence and Peace: A Jaina Viewpoint," Jain Journal
(January, 1991), p. 139.

36 Jaini, Jaina Path, p. 91.

37 Siddhasena Divakara's Sanmati Tarka, tr. Pandita Sukhlalji Sanghavi and
Pandita Bechardasji Doshi (Bombay: Shri Jain Shivetamber Education Board,
1939), 1.21, 25, in Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Charles A. Moore, eds., A
Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1957), p. 270.

38 Syadvadamanjari, XXIII, quoted in Radhakrishnan and Moore, Sourcebook,
p. 265.

39 Sanmati Tarka, 1.28, quoted in Radhakrishnan and Moore, Sourcebook, p.
270. Radhakrishnan argued that, in order to present a logically consistent
pluralism and avoid the fallacy of relativism, the Jaina theory of
relativity must be grounded ultimately in the positing of an absolute--a
position Jainas avoid, even in the description of the kevalin
(Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy, vol. 1, pp. 305-308).

40 Sutrakrtanga, I.I I, quoted in Ainslie T. Embree, ed. and rev., Sources
of Indian Tradition, vol. 1, From the Beginning to 1800, 2nd rev. ed. (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1988), p. 59.

41 These two principles are foundational to Jainism. Equanimity (samayika)
is based on the teaching that every entity in the phenomenal world, not
just humans, is considered a being on the path to liberation. Related is
the principle of parasparopagrahojivanam (literally, the mutual uplifting
of lives), paraphrased by N. P. Jain as "all lives are mutually supportive"
(N. P. Jain, "A Portrait of Jainism," in Joel Beversluis, ed., A Sourcebook
for the Community of Religions [Chicago: Council for a Parliament of the
World's Religions, 1993], p. 76). This second principle, found in
Tattvartha-sutra, 5.21, was incorporated into the official symbol of the
Jaina faith as its slogan in 1975 (Jaini, Jaina Path, p. 316).

42 Apadgraha entails, according to the tradition, the renunciation of both
"external" and "internal" possessions, the latter being comprised of
various passions signifying attachment (Jaini, Jaina Path, p. 177). A broad
interpretation of nonpossessiveness is also given by Gopalan, Outlines, p.
164.

43 Acaranga, 1.411, quoted in Jain, "Search," p. 135.

44 Jain, "Search," p. 136, citing Prasnavyakarana-sutra, 2.1.21.

45 Ibid., p. 137.

46 See Leona Smith Kremser, "Twenty Most-Asked Questions about Jainism,"
Jain Journal (January, 1970), p. 180, wherein she explicitly linked Jaina
"nonabsolutism" (anekantavada) and observance of nonviolence: The history
of Jainism is "free of non-Jains blood because Jainas practice a mutual
sympathy and toleration for the views of others."

47 Jain, "Search," p. 139.

48 Syadvadamanjari, XXV, quoted in Radhakrishnan and Moore, Sourcebook, p.
267. Jaini sought to resolve this contradiction by stating that, while
these doctrines were false due to their one-sidedness (their presumption to
be absolute), they were, "from the proper perspective" of syadvada, true
enough to be "integrated into the Jaina system" (Jaini, Jaina Path, p. 90).
He illustrated this resolution by using the seemingly contradictory views
on the eternal or noneternal nature of Being found, respectively, in
Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism.

49 Jaini, Jaina Path, p. 118, citing Savarthasiddhi, 749.

50 This dialectic between the general and the particular, between
statements about the whole and about the parts, and between synthesis and
analysis is basic to the Jaina doctrine of manysidedness (see
Syadvadamanjari in Radhakrishnan and Moore, Sourcebook, pp. 262-263).

51 Langdon Gilkey, "Plurality and Its Theological Implications," in John
Hick and Paul F. Knitter, eds., The Myth of Christian Uniqueness: Toward a
Pluralistic Theology of Religions, Faith Meets Faith Series (Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis Books, 1987), p. 46.

52 Ibid., p. 47. On this relation of praxis and theory in relation to
pluralism, also see Raimundo Panikkar, "The Myth of Pluralism: The Tower of
Babel -- A Meditation on Non-Violence," Cross Currents 29 (Summer, 1979):
200; note Panikkar's preference for "dialogical tension" as opposed to
"dialectics" as a term for his preferred approach to plurality (pp.
206-212, 218-221), an approach that is otherwise very close to Gilkey's.

53 Biographies of Gandhi note the influence of Jainism on his early life,
growing up in Gujarat where this tradition is prominent, as well as the
impact of Buddhism in his later religious "experiments." See, e.g., Louis
Fischer, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi (New York: Harper & Bros., 1950), pp.
21-22, 237. Separate mention of these religions is infrequent in Gandhi's
writings, because he considered them parts of Hinduism, contributing in
particular their strong emphases on nonviolence (M. K. Gandhi, The Essence
of Hinduism, ed. V. B. Kher [Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1987, p. 28).

54 This strategy derived, in part, from his legal practice, in which
getting to know both plaintiff and defendent served to help settle
difficult cases. See Mohandas K. Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My
Experiments with Truth, tr. Mahadev Desai (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1957),
especially Pt. II, chap. 14; Pt. IV, chap. 40; Pt. V, chap. 2. "[I]t is my
rule, as a Satyagrahi, to understand the viewpoint of the party I propose
to deal with, and to try to agree with him as far as may be possible"
(ibid., p. 375).

55 On the equation of Truth and God, see Krishna Kripalani, ed., All Men
Are Brothers: Life and Thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi As ToM in His Own Words
(Paris: UNESCO; New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), chap. 2,
"Religion and Truth," pp. 56-80. On the relationship between satyagraha and
faith in God, see Gandhi, Essence of Hinduism, p. 94. Gandhi's efforts to
find suitable nontheistic language came in response to the question of
whether Jainas and Buddhists, who do not profess belief in God, would
reject his statements regarding the necessity of faith.

56 Robert Ellsberg, ed., Gandhi on Christianity (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis
Books, 1991).

57 Ibid., p. 58.

58 Ibid., p. 62.

59 On Gandhi's appropriation of anekantavada, see Diana L. Eck, "Gandhian
Guidelines for a World of Religious Difference," in ibid., especially pp.
79-80. See also Stephen N. Hay, "Jain Influence on Gandhi's Early Thought,"
in Sibnarayan Ray, ed. and intro., Gandhi, India, and the World: An
International Symposium (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1970), pp.
29-38. Note particularly Gandhi's remarks: "I very much like this doctrine
of the manyness of reality. It is this doctrine that has taught me to judge
a Mussulman from his standpoint and a Christian from his.... From the
platform of the Jains I prove the non-creative aspect of God, and from that
of Ramanuja the creative aspect. As a matter of fact we are all thinking of
the Unthinkable, describing the Undescribable, seeking to know the Unknown,
and that is why our speech falters, is inadequate and even often
contradictory" (quoted in Hay, "Jain Influence," p. 29). Hence, he would
also state, "different religions express different facets of Truth" (Young
India, February 20, 1930).

60 Ellsburg, Gandhi on Christianity, p. 61.

61 Ibid., p. 58; see also p. 62: "[T]olerance ... does not mean
indifference towards one's own faith, but a more intelligent and purer love
for it."

62 See Raimundo Panikkar's discussion of "multireligious experience" and
the "risk of faith" in his The Intrareligious Dialogue (New York: Paulist
Press, 1978), pp. 1-22.

63 Separate discussion of nonpossessiveness (aparigraha) will not be made
as in prior sections. Gandhi does speak of aparigrapha as an important
element of his own spiritual discipline, usually in association with ahimsa
and the other traditional yamas ("restraints") listed in Patanjali's
Yogasutras. Gandhi also spoke of aparigraha as one of the teachings of the
Bhagavad Gita that was most meaningful to him (see Gandhi, An
Autobiography, Pt. IV, chaps. 5, 10).

64 Ellsburg, Gandhi on Christianity, p. 62.

65 Ibid.

66 Ibid., pp. 66-67.

67 Kripalani, All Men, p. 93 (chap. 4, #29).

68 Ellsburg, Gandhi on Christianity, p. 68.

69 Ibid., pp. 26, 21.

70 Ibid., p. 63; also see Kripalani, All Men, pp. 69-70 (chap. 2, #58-59),
86-87 (chap. 4, #7), and 99 (chap. 4, #59-60).

71 Ellsburg, Gandhi on Christianity, p. 73.

72 Ibid., p. 62.

73 Ibid., p. 68.

74 Ibid., pp. 68-69. Note that Gandhi did not call for a syncretistic
fusion of all religions but, rather, affirmed the value of the differences
between them. See Eck, "Gandhian Guidelines," p. 81. Gandhi said: "I do not
aim at fusion. Each religion has its own contribution to make to human
evolution" (Harijan, January 28, 1938).

75 Gandhi, An Autobiography, Pt. V, chap. 33.

76 Ellsburg, Gandhi on Christianity, pp. 72-73.

77 Kripalani, All Men, chap. 4, "Ahimsa or the Way of Non-Violence," pp.
85-107.

78 Cf. J. F. T. Jordens, "Gandhi and Religious Pluralism," in Coward,
Modern Indian Responses, pp. 3-17, in which the author detailed the
evolution of Gandhi's attitude from "tolerance" to affirming the "equality"
of all religions. Jordens clearly analyzed the roles that truth and
nonviolence play as criteria for evaluating religions, concluding that they
function not to judge between true and false doctrines but between right
and wrong action. Together these criteria, according to Jordens, constitute
a norm that functioned dogmatically for Gandhi, and thus it served as a
highly individualistic basis for affirming the equality of religions--a
conclusion that D'Costa would likely claim further validates his thesis.

79 Ellsburg, Gandhi on Christianity, p. 69; also see Gandhi, Essence of
Hinduism, p. 34.

80 Ellsburg, Gandhi on Christianity, p. 69.

81 For an intriguing study of this alternative "logic" for relationship
between self and other in which the exclusive dominance of one's own point
of view is transcended, see Beatrice Bruteau, "Communitarian Non-Dualism,"
in Beatrice Bruteau, comp., The Other Half of My Soul: Bede Griffiths and
the Hindu-Christian Dialogue (Wheaton, IL; and Adyar, Madras: Quest Books,
The Theosophical Publishing House, 1996). Interestingly, for the Indian
focus of this essay, Bruteau compared the Christian notion of agapic love
with the Hindu idea of nonduality (advaita), both pointing to a
relationship in which both unity and distinction are maintained.

82 Ellsburg, Gandhi on Christianity, p. 73; also see Gandhi, An
Autobiography, Pt. V, Farewell, pp. 503-505.

83 Of value here are the insights of another Indian source, Raimon
Panikkar, who has argued effectively that pluralism is not simply a theory
but a vision, one necessarily grounded in myth as well as logic. See, e.g.,
his "Myth of Pluralism," pp. 197-230.

84 Eck, Encountering God, p. 77.

85 Ibid., pp. 78-79.

86 Ibid., p. 79.

87 Ibid.

88 Ibid.

89 Note that Eck did not presume that her experience was like that of the
Hindu women around her. Nevertheless, the experience was differently enough
configured as to quiet her usual thought processes temporarily. The
experience was also sufficiently connected to that of Hindus to facilitate
dialogue with them.

90 Eck, Encountering God, p. 80.

91 Ibid.

92 Ibid., p. 180.

93 See Panikkar's brief characterization of the Indian view of pluralism in
contrast to the Western view in his Silence of God, pp. 197-198, n. 28: "It
is a cultural characteristic of India to set in confrontation a pluralism
of truths and a monism of reality. By contrast, Western culture is founded
on a pluralism of realities 'corrected' by a monism of truth." Also see the
various suggestions concerning the polycentric nature of Indian culture and
religion; e.g., Julius J. Lipner, "Ancient Banyan: An Inquiry into the
Meaning of 'Hinduness,'" Religious Studies 32 (March, 1996): 109-126; and
Eck, Encountering God, chap. 3. Note that few from either India or the West
would suggest that the Indian sources on a pluralist view of religions have
influenced that culture sufficiently in order to prevent interreligious
violence.