Jaina Theories of Reality and Knowledge

SR No.: 001608
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Y J Padmarajiah
Publisher: Jain Sahitya Vikas Mandal
Publication Year: 1963
Total Pages: 444
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Epistemology, & Anekantvad
File Size: 23 MB

Page 301

282 JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE (vibhu) åkāśa. Nor does the Nyāya belief in what might be described as the wave theory of sound'-that is, the theory according to which sound is transmitted by waves-work without presupposing a divisible ākāśa. Hence the Nyāya view of äkāśa' points, according to Abhayadeva, to the Jaina thesis of the săvayava nature of åkāśa.
Thus the Jaina view of ākāśa is that it is an objective real having infinite parts or pradeśas“ (“space-points') which signify its anekānta nature (nānātvam ityanekāntaḥ").
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Cf. na ca niravayavatve åkāśasya santānavsttyā āgatasya śabdasya śrotrenāpyupalabdhiḥ sambhavati anyanyākäśadeśotpattidvāreņa tasya śrotrasamavetasyānupapatteh jalataranganyāyenāparāparākasadeśādāvaparāparaśabdotpattiprakalpanāyām kathań näkāśasya sāva yavatvam / TBV, p. 642. For a further reference to a few other consequences resulting
from the Nyāya view of akāśa, see ibid., pp. 641-642. 3. anantabhägapramitam ākāśadravyam / Brahmadeva's Dravyasar
grahavrtti (Davva-samgaha by Nemicandra S. Chakravarti, ed.
S.C. Ghosal, Arrah, 1917), p. 24. 4. A pradeśa or 'space-point' is 'the space occupied by an atom'.
PrSKU, p. 17 (E. Tr.), f. n. 4. The pradeśas are, however, limited to physical space' (lokākāśa) only, the other part of äkāśa
being a 'non-physical space' (alokākāśa). Ibid. 5. Vide TRAG, p. 203, gā. 19 and the com. thereon.
The manifoldness of time is indicated not merely by an infinity of intrinsically real (päramärthika) units called kālānus or time-atoms' which form the basis of the conventionally temporal (vyāvahārika) distinctions like the minute, the hour, the day, the year and so on, but also by the diverse effects which are brought about by the instrumentality of the kälanus which permeate the events in the universe. Cf. so'nantasamayaḥ/ TSVJ, V. 40, "The Jaina Theory of Time", Y. G. Padmarajiah (a paper read in the Indian Philosophical Congress Trivandrum, 1947) and TRAG, V. sū. 22, especially the kı. 14 and the comm. on both. For further light on the manifoldness in various senses, of ākäsa as well as on dharma and adharma,