Cosmology Old and New

SR No.: 006547
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: G R Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith
Publication Year: 1991
Total Pages: 232
Language: English
Classification: Book_English & Philosophy
File Size: 12 MB

Page 149

SUTRA 22.
117
taken it to be synonymous with succession and, consequently, failed to understand its true nature. Some have even gone the length of eliminating it from the list of existing substances, forgetting that things continue and undergo changes of form only in 'Time', not otherwise. In one of its aspects, then, Time is the source of continuity and in the other a kind of force which makes it impossible for things to leap aver succession and orderliness, by making them travel, point by point, or step by step, on the path of evolution. Take away 'Time' as an all- : pervading force from the universe, replace it in the form of: capsules of energy in the individuals and you destroy the possibility of succession, i.e., orderly causation, at a stroke, since in a world without time things might well occur and vanish like the beautiful palace of Alladin of the wonderful Lamp. Remove 'Time' altogether from the world and you stop its evolution instantaneously, since no world-process is conceivable where continuity and succession are both conspicuous by their absence. Thus, from one point of view, 'Time' serves as the mainspring of the perpetuum mobile, and, from another, keeps back the impish chance from playing its uncanny pranks with men and the things in the world". 262
At this stage one is reminded of the great French philosopher, Bergson, who declared to the world that time was a potent factor in the evolution of the Cosmos. He was of opinion that changes and modifications are absolutely impossible without time element and so is the view of the Jain writers.
The view of modern science with regard to the passing of time is well expressed by Richard Hughes :
“The only way in which you can tell future from past is that you will find more chance263 and higgledy-piggledy in it! To take a simple case. Suppose I made a cinema-film, in which some children came into a tidy room and played about at random till it was thoroughly untidy and then left. Now it would be possible to show that film backwards--then you would see the children go into the room and romp about till it was thoroughly tidy--but you would not believe it, you would know the film was being run backwards. Well, the whole universe is a vast room, in which innumerable energy is arranged. To muddle thoroughly such an enormous room will take many
262. Key of Knowledge, p. 758. 263. "Chance' here means 'absence of order liness.'