Microcosmology Atom in Jain Philosophy and Modern Science

SR No.: 002005
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jethalal S Zaveri, Mahendramuni
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
Publication Year: 1995
Total Pages: 266
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Science, Philosophy, & Religion
File Size: 14 MB

Page 162

Microcosmology: Atom
focussed in it and is not annulled. So a mode is identical with substance in that respect. To take an example, clay is transformed into a jar, and so the former is regarded as the cause of the latter. The jar is different from clay, no doubt, but the jar could not be a jar unless it were the same substance as clay. The mode and the substance may be viewed as identical and also as different, as they are both in one. Thus the consequences, are not inevitable, as they are based upon exclusive identity and exlusive difference. But the identity is not exclusive of difference and vice versa, as both are the attested traits of Reality. If identity is to be asserted on the evidence of experience, difference also should equally be asserted on the strength of the same evidence. The compartmental way of looking at things leads to the affirmation of one and to the negation of the other. The besetting sin of philosophers has been the habit to put the telescope upon the blind eye and then to deduce that the other aspect is not real. The Jain Philosopher voices the necessity of using both the eyes and of seeing the obverse and reverse of the coin of Reality.
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The triple charcteristics gives out the internal constitution of Reality. A real persists through time and thus has these three-past, present and future-temporal determinations. So a real is real for all time. It was real in the past, is real in the present and will be real in future. A 'real' which has no past and no future is a fiction and a non-entity.
Let us sum up the results of our investigation into the nature of Reality. The Jain philosopher has proved that absolute unqualified affirmation of existence is not in conformity with the nature of Reality. He has also proved that absolute negation of existence is self-contradictory. He has further proved that fidelity to experience and thought demands that existence and non-existence both are to be accepted as equally valid traits in the make-up of a real.
In order to guard against the absolutist habit of believing existence and non-existence as whole-characteristics excluding each other from their respective orbit, the Jain Philosopher prefaces cach proposition by the limiting phrase 'in some respect' or 'in one particular aspect' (syat). The insertion of this phrase is