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अनेकान्त 65/3, जुलाई-सितम्बर
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time. The liberated souls therefore know the Absolute Truth. Human habitats are not stationary and are also constrained by time. Therefore humans cannot sense absolute truth and so did Buddha who declared that everything in the universe is impermanent and necessarily relative.
5. Jain Concepts of Being, Non-being Permanence and Impermanence
The notion of 'being' is opposite of the notion 'non-being. This is the concept of Buddha and others about reality. They think that Being and nonbeing cannot have existence at the same time. The belief that the 'self is there before I was born and will continue after I die' is a belief in permanence, which is not acceptable to Buddha. 'Everything is impermanent and necessarily relative, conditional, finite, dependent and subject to birth, death and decay' says Lord Buddha. Every phenomenon hangs between reality and nothingness. A butter fly is borne out of the egg. The egg turns into caterpillar, the caterpillar grows in size, sheds its last skin and grows a tough, flexible shell and from this shell emerges a fully grown butterfly. In few days the butterfly may also die. Buddha says all the forms of egg, caterpillar and butterfly are impermanent and each one dies giving birth to its successor. There is no element of permanency involved at any stage.
On the contrary Mahavir and the modern science say death of butterfly is not the end of the story. On death, the butterfly decays into atoms and realign again as molecules of manure used by plants as food. A young butterfly feeds on the plants, takes the nectar from the flowers, turns it into protein and lays the eggs and the life cycle of the butterfly continues. The different physical forms of egg, caterpillar, and butterfly are impermanent but there ought to be something permanent which is acquiring these forms. Mahavir calls this permanent element Atman and science calls it energy quanta which can also take solid forms.Jains believe that at the time of death, the old body being incapable of sustaining the life process any longer perishes along with senses and intellect leaving soul and Karman Sharira intact to space. Karman Sharira stores all karmas and memoire of previous birth like a computer hard disc. This soul-karman Sharira combination then enters a new embryonic body, the matrix of which is determined by the Karman Sharira.
Bhagwan Mahavir says "being" and "nonbeing" both exist simultaneously and appear as facts or reality. Being and nonbeing are two sides of the same coin. They are not opposite word but they are relative words". Thus Sat is not opposite of Asat, Lok is notopposite of Alok, Jeev is not opposite of Ajeev, Dharm is not opposite of Adharm, They all have independent existence. They all are dravyas with Guna and Paryay. Depending on the level of our knowledge, perception and vision, a thing which is illusionary and non-being appear existing and 'being'.
