Jain Journal 1971 10

SR No.: 520024
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publication Year: 1971
Total Pages: 45
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Journal, & India
File Size: 3 MB

Page 4

BOOK REVIEW
VISVA PRAHELIKA (Enigma of the Universe in Hindi) : Muni Mahendra Kumar (II) : Javeri Prakashan, Bombay, 1969 : Pages 17+364 : Price Rs. 15.00.
Muni Mahendra Kumar (II), a young monk of the Terapanth order of the Jainas, has produced a useful volume on the Jaina view of the Universe, based on authoritative canonical texts. It includes Jaina metaphysics (dravya-mimārsā) which discusses the material composition of the universe, Jaina cosmology which discusses its nature and dimensions and Jaina cosmogony which discusses its age, both past and futur This is a field in which Jaina scholars were one of the earliest to take interest and record their findings in their sacred books. Obviously the material was scattered and was not readily available. In bringing it together, the Muni has made it handy to interested people. Apprehending that the title 'Visva Prahelikä' may not be adequately expressive of its content, the author has added a sub-title 'Cosmology and Cosmogony in the light of Modern Sciences, Western Philosophy and Jaina Darśan'. The methodology is comparative in which philosophers and scientists of the western world from the Greek times to our own have been freely brought in. There is an elaborate appendix in the end on Jaina mathematics, falling in four parts as : 'measure of space', 'measure of time', 'statistics', and 'loka-dimensions'. A perusual of the book gives the pleasure that our remote forefathers living at least 2500 years back were not 'unscientific' according to modern standards.
Man's interest not only in his little home called the earth, but also in all its neighbours--at least as far as his mental and material, more mental than material in the past, equipments would take him-must have been pretty old. Starting, as it perhaps did, to satisfy a vacant curiosity, it later developed into a mature thing when man, the Jainas in particular, were tempted to put it to a spiritual end. It gave satisfaction to the Jainas to think that, stationed as they were on this earth, which was somewhere in the middle of the loka, there were several ‘earths' beneath, to which they would be assigned if they indulged in acts of impiety and swerved from the path indicated by the Jina, as there were several such above, to which they would be lifted for all their pious deeds, and on top of them all was a place, most coveted, a place of eternal and never-toterminate bliss, which was the abode of the liberated souls, and which hang before them as the ultimate goal to attain, provided they were