by Adi Śankarācārya (~800 CE) in his bhasya on Brahmasutra (2:2:33–36): He stated that anekantavada doctrine when applied to philosophy suffers from two problems: virodha (contradictions) and samsaya (dubiety), neither of which it is able to reconcile with objectivity. Shankara's criticism of anekantavada extended beyond the arguments of it being incoherent epistemology in ontological matters. According to Shankara, the goal of philosophy is to identify one's doubts and remove them through reason and understanding, not get more confused. The problem with anekantavada doctrine is that it compounds and glorifies confusion. Further, states Shankara, Jains use this doctrine to be "certain that everything is uncertain". Contemporary scholars, states Piotr Balcerowicz, concur that the Jain doctrine of Anekantavada does reject some versions of the "law of non-contradiction", but it is incorrect to state that it rejects this law in all instances. Buddhist philosophy The Buddhist scholar Śāntarakṣita, and his student Kamalasila, criticized anekantavada by presenting his arguments that it leads to the Buddhist premise "jivas (souls) do not exist". That is, the two of the most important doctrines of Jainism are mutually contradictory premises. According to Santaraksita, Jains state that "jiva is one considered collectively, and many considered distributively", but if so debates Santaraksita, "jiva cannot change". He then proceeds to show that changing jiva necessarily means jiva appear and disappear every moment, which is equivalent to "jiva don't exist". According to Karl Potter, the argument posited by Śāntarakṣita is flawed, because it commits what is called in the Western logic as the "fallacy of division". The Buddhist logician Dharmakirti critiqued anekāntavāda as follows: Self-criticism in Jain scholarship The medieval era Jain logicians Akalanka and Vidyananda, who were likely contemporaries of Adi Shankara, acknowledged many issues with anekantavada in their texts. For example, Akalanka in his Pramanasamgraha acknowledges seven problems when anekantavada is applied to develop a comprehensive and consistent philosophy: dubiety, contradiction, lack of conformity of bases (), joint fault, infinite regress, intermixture and absence. Vidyananda acknowledged six of those in the Akalanka list, adding the problem of vyatikara (cross breeding in ideas) and apratipatti (incomprehensibility). Prabhācandra, who probably lived in the 11th century, and several other later Jain scholars accepted many of these identified issues in anekantavada application. See also References Citations Bibliography Note: ISBN refers to the UK:Routledge (2001) reprint. URL is the scan version of the original 1884 reprint. Note:ISBN refers to the UK:Routledge (2001) reprint. URL is