Reals on the Jaina Metaphysics

SR No.: 001619
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: Shatnidas Khetsy Charitable Trust Mumbai
Publication Year: 1966
Total Pages: 430
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Religion, & Epistemology
File Size: 8 MB

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Reals in the Jaina Metaphysics thets, applied to the real time-units which condition those modifications and underlie our experiential timings. The Jaina's mean this by saying that the application of the distinctions of past, present and future to the Kālāņus or Dravya-kāla is Gauņa or Aupaçārika. WHERE THE JAINA'S DIFFER FROM ARISTOTLE
Aristotle, as we have already pointed out, accounted for the continuity of Time by the fact of the continuity of Motion. Such a theory was not open to the Jaina's whose Kālāņus were strictly static substances. All Jaina descriptions of Kāla, however, compare it with a heap of jewels. The author of the Tattvārtha-sāra, for instance, in describing the Kālāņus says:
लोकाकाशप्रदेशेषु रत्नराशिरिव स्थिताः
TIME-UNITS, COMPARED TO A HEAP OF JEWELS BY THE JAINA'S
Similarly, the author of Dravya-saṁgraha says: रयणाणांरासीमिव ते कलाणू असंख दव्याणी। (द्रव्यसंग्रह :)
It is generally supposed that the comparison of Time with a heap of jewels is meant to point out that the timeunits are strictly separate from each other and are never mixed up. A jewel is, no doubt, a hard substance which does not lose itself in another jewel. But it is nevertheless a bright thing which has brilliant glow all about it. This halo of jewels makes a heap of them appear as one continuous substance, although each of them is individually separate from others. Strictly static and discrete units cannot otherwise put on the appearance of one continuous whole. I think that the Jaina philosophers had a purpose in view in describing Time as a heap of jewels, viz. that thereby they wanted to offer an explanation of the apparent continuity of Time which is really a conglomerate of strictly discrete units.'
The theory that 'Kala' consists of Kälānus or infinitesimal points of Time is the theory of the Digamvara Jaina school. The Swetamvaras do not admit that the Kāla is a conglomeration of Kālāņus'.