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
gent world-principle which brought about the ordered universe. We find the ground work of modern theistic theories consisting in the hypothesis of a world-creator and world-governor in the Anaxagorean doctrine of Nous. But this is clearly a step beyond the bounds of strict mechanical materialism. The outlook of Stoic philosophy was no. doubt pantheistic and according to it the world-reason was at the basis of the cosmic system. Nevertheless the Stoics tried their best to adhere to the materialistic doctrine as much as possible. The world-reason of theirs was conceived as a warm, vital breath permeating all things material and constituting their immanent moving principle. These attempts at eliminating chance from the world system, consisted however in introducing a principle, foreign to the elementary atoms. Empedocles, on the other hand, attributed love and hate to the elements themselves whereby their combinations and decompositions were determined. Epicurus similarly adhered to the moving atoms themselves and for the purpose of accounting for their combintions without a reference to chance, he ascribed to them a capacity for voluntary deviation from the direct line of their movements. It is obvious that attribution of a sort of mentality to the atoms would not be acceptable to a materialist. Bergman explained combinations of atoms by what he called their elective attractions. This elective attraction presupposes the law of chemical affinity', in accordance with which the ultimate particles of an element unite with those with which they have affinity. This again implies that elements having not the chemical affinity would not combine. Thus the old Democritian theory of the moving atoms being combined by chance is considerably modified, if not replaced by the modern doctrine of atoms having the forces of attraction: and repulsion inherent in them, by means of which they combine with or repel one another according to definite. and well-established laws.
ATOMS ARE ACTIVE
The Indian theory of atoms like the Greek one ascribes