Cosmology Old and New

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

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COSMOLOGY : OLD AND NEW world together is a necessary pre-supposition even of modern science. It is really wonderful that Jaina thinkers several centuries
go felt the same intellectual necessity of supposing a physical force which maintains the cosmic unity. The reason given for that hypothesis is still more interesting. If there is no such power and if things living and non-living were left in space by themselves without a further principle to hold them together, there would be only chaos, no systematic world. This argument must be considered very important for it gives us an insight into the scientific ideas of the ancients. The positive science of ancient Indians must have been fairly advanced in order to promul gate such physical theories as are contemplated by the author. In next gathā, the same fact has again been asserted :
तम्हा धम्माधम्मा गमणट्टिदिकारणाणि णागासं । (Dharma and adharma, i.e., Aether and gravitation are the condition of motion and rest respectively and not akāśa or space.)
In next gātha the author states that lokākāśa or worldspace, dharma and adharma, are all co-extensive and coincident. Hence they may be considered as one conventionally as they are all incorporeal entities in the same locality. But they are in reality different from one another on account of their functional difference.
धम्माधम्मागासा अपुधब्भूदा समाणपरिमाणा।
पुधगुवलद्धिविसेसा करंति एगत्तमण्णत्तं ।। " (Dharma, adharma and space are mutually interpenetrating and coincident. Hence they are one from the point of locality; they are of the same size and form and constitute an inseparable unit. But from the diference of function they also exhibit their diversity.
COMMENTARY This gatha is interesting for this reason that dharma and adharma being constitutive elements of the world are said to be confined to lokakaśa. Their influence is not felt beyond the boundary of the world, for their influence is fundamentally
98. Ibid. gatha 102, 99. Ibid. gatha 103.