Anekāntavāda, the Jain doctrine of multiple perspectives, is often illuminated through the famous parable of the blind men and the elephant. Each blind man touches a different part of the animal and forms a distinct judgment: one feels the leg and says it is like a pillar, another grasps the tail and insists it is like a rope, another holds the trunk and compares it to a snake or hose, while yet another feels the ear and likens it to a fan. None of them is entirely wrong, yet none of them captures the whole. This story shows how each standpoint can be partially true, though incomplete, and how truth is better approached by integrating these partial insights rather than absolutizing any single one.

Jain thinkers also illustrate this doctrine through everyday objects, such as a clay pot. From a practical standpoint, the pot is real and useful; it holds water and can be handled and broken. From a deeper standpoint focused on substance, the pot is only a temporary configuration of clay, and the separate identity of “pot” is not ultimately real. Similarly, statements like “the pot exists” and “the pot does not exist” can both be valid when carefully qualified: it exists here and now on the table, yet it does not exist in another place, or before its making, or after its destruction. Anekāntavāda thus encourages attention to standpoint and context, so that apparently conflicting claims are seen as complementary rather than mutually exclusive.

The same logic extends to understanding the human being as both body and soul. From a physical perspective, a person is embodied, subject to biological and environmental conditions. From a spiritual perspective, the true self is the conscious jīva, distinct from the body and capable of liberation. Rather than collapsing one into the other, Anekāntavāda allows both descriptions to stand as valid in their respective domains. In ethical life, this becomes especially poignant: a ruler or decision‑maker, for example, may have to hold together the standpoint of justice, which demands order and protection of society, with the standpoint of compassion and non‑violence, which warns against causing harm and accruing bondage.

This many‑sided vision naturally fosters a generous attitude toward diverse religious and philosophical views. Other traditions—whether emphasizing devotion, emptiness, grace, or other aspects of the path—may be seen as grasping genuine facets of a reality that surpasses any single formulation. Each doctrine, when taken as absolute and exclusive, becomes one‑sided; when seen as a partial but meaningful insight, it can enter into respectful dialogue with others. In this way, Anekāntavāda is not merely an abstract theory but a spiritual discipline of humility, training the mind to recognize the limits of its own angle of vision and to honor the fragment of truth present in many different standpoints.