Book Title: Epitome of Jainism
Author(s): K B Jindal
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

View full book text
Previous | Next

Page 45
________________ 3 Panchastikayasara and destruction, gives to dravya a characteristic mode of existence every moment. This continuous flow of the real is parallel to the continuous flow of the duration of time. This intrinsic change of dravya is known as arthaparyâya. All the six dravyas have this arthaparyaya. What is vyanjanaparyâya ? It is not merely the cross-section in the continuous flow of dravya. Vyanjanaparyâya has a pretty fixed duration of existence. Besides the molecular aggregation and disintegration that take place every moment in a physical object, the object may have a particular mode of existence; as a pot, for example, for a certain duration of time. This paryâya of pot is vyanjanaparyâya of pudgala. Similarly for Jiva. The continuous change that takes place in consciousness is Jiva's arthaparyâya. Its existence as a particular organism, as a man or a deva with determinate age, is the vyanjanaparyaya of Jîva. Thus Jiva and pudgala have both the kinds of paryayas whereas the other four dravyas have got only arthaparyâya alone. The reals are thus exhausted by the six dravyas with their respective guņas and paryâyas. Since these dravyas are reals, they have satta or astitva or existence as their common characteristic. From this point of view of satta, all the Dravyas may be brought under one class. Though from the class point of view all the dravyas are one, still the satta, their common characteristic should not be abstracted and postulated as the unitary substance of which the other dravyas may be taken as paryayas. This ekânta view is condemned as unwarranted and erroneous. The six dravyas in spite of their common characteristic of saita are fundamental and irreducible, one to another. One more point and we may leave this topic. A thing in concrete world is therefore a paryaya of anyone of the dravyas. It is also otherwise called artha. An artha or a thing is a cerporate unity of an infinite number of qualities, just as the cosmos is a system of infinite number of arihas. The one is extensive and the other is intensive; but both are infinite wholes. According to Jaina philosophy, therefore, we require an infinite thought to apprehend them completely. He who cannot know a thing completely cannot know the world completely, and conversely he who cannot know the world completely cannot know even a single thing really and completely. This particular attitude of the Jaina thinkers reminds us of Tennyson's apostrophe to a Flower in the Crannied Wall : Little flower—but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is. JAINA BIOLOGY Perhaps it is inaccurate to speak of biology in the system before us. The science of biology as such is peculiar to modern age; hence we are not quite justified in expecting such a scientific conception in a work of pre-christian era and which is perhaps of the same age as of Plato and Aristotle. Naturally therefore, the ideas about the organic world are curiously intermixed with Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248