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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to have been recognised by the Jaina thinkers who pointed out that Sneha and Rūkşa, the two forces operating in the matter of combination of atoms with all their various modes and manners of operation were dependent on causes both external and inherent in the nature of the atoms. वाह्याभ्यन्तरकारणबशात् स्नेहपर्यायाविर्भावात्। and द्वितयनिमित्तबशात् रूक्षणाद् रूक्ष्क्ष इति व्यपदिश्यते।
SNEHA AND DRAVATVA: SNIGDHA AND RŪKŞA
Like the Nyāya-Vaiseșika expressions, Sneha and Dravatva the Jaina Snigdha and Rūkņa also cannot be taken in their literal and popular sense. It is only safe to assume that they signify only the grounds or forces which account for the combination of atoms. The Jaina's maintain that an atom with the minimum degree of Snigdha or Rūkşa cannot combine with another; that atoms with equal degree of either Snigdha or Rūkşa cannot combine with others of their own or of the opposite state; that, in order that an atom may unite with another there should be a difference of two degrees of Snigdha or Rūksa between them. All these assertions of the Jaina physicists, we confess, are unintelligible. At the same time, it is possible to trace in them a vague conception of the important law of chemical combination of elements. Dalton discovered that the atoms of one element which combine with those of another element bear a weight which is different from that of the other. These respective weights of the two combining atoms are definite and their ratios can be denoted by numbers. In a similar way Gay Lussac demonstrated that a definite volume of oxygen combined with exactly twice its bulk of hydrogen and pointed out that there is a definite relation between the volumes of two combining gases and also between their total volume in the combined and in the uncombined conditions. It is thus established that there are laws governing combinations of atoms. Molecules of a given element consist of similar (Sadrśa, as the Jaina's call them) atoms while those of compounds are conglomerates of dissimilar atoms; but the proportions in weight and volume in which the