Cosmology Old and New

Author(s): G R Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 37

SUTRA 1 (Ajivakāya)
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Although the western scholars have no faith in the above doctrine of Indian Krsna, it is nevertheless a historic fact based on philological's evidences that Aryan culture of the East is the most primitive culture known on the surface of the earth. According to the investigations of western scholars Aristotle and Kant who, at one time swayed philosophic thought most powerfully, taught that the space in the Universe is continually filled with matter. The first clear exposition of the fact that matter is not continuous but atornic is said to have been given by the Indian Rși Kanada" long before the rise of Grecian philosophy. Amongst the Greek philosophers, Democritus of Abodera was the first to put forth the opinion that the world consists of empty space and an infinite number of indivisible, invisibly small atoms and that the appearance and disappearance of bodies was due to the union and separation of atoms. It is well to bear in mind that Democritus lived about the year 420 B.C., when the beautiful realities of the atomic world revealed by Lord Mahāvira were hardly 100 years old. "According to Max Muller, there are many points in common between the early Greek and Indian philosophers, and there is a historical possibility that the Greeks were influenced by Indian thought travelling through Persia.
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It is rather unfortunate that Jainas until lately did not give opportunity to western scholars to study their literature, 19 otherwise the history of atomic theory of matter would have well extended beyond the time of Kanada and Greek philosophers to the time of Lord Parsvanatha (842 B.C.), if not beyond it. (Western scholars have come to regard Lord Parsvanatha as a historical person and founder of Jainism20) The main difficulty in tracing the ancient origin of any fact mentioned in jaina
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15. Vide O. Schrader, Sprachvergleichungen and Urgeschichte Jena, 1907; T. Taylor, The Origin of the Aryans, London, 1892; F.M. Muller, Biographies of Words, and the Home of the Aryas, London, 252, 1888.
16. H.T. Colebrooke, Asiatic Researches of Calcutta, 5.1.1799.
17. Lord Mahavira (598-527 B.C.)
18. Quoted from A Comprehensive Treatise on Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry by J.W. Mellor, D.Sc., p. 22.
19. "Some days when the whole of the Jain Scriptures will have been critically edited and their contents lexically tabulated together with their ancient glosses, they will throw many lights on the dark places of ancient and modern Indian languages and literature."-Dr. Barnett.
20. See History of the World by Harmsworth, Vol. II, p. 1198.