Facets of Jain Philosophy Religion and Culture

Author(s): Shreechand Rampuriya, Ashwini Kumar, T M Dak, Anil Dutt Mishra
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

Page 381

364 Anekāntavāda and Syadvāda
measurements in space-latitude, longitude are dependent on measurements of time.
What Einstein emphasises is that there is neither absolute (independent of space of reference) relation in space, nor absolute relation in time between two events, but there is absolute (independent of the space of reference) relation in space-time. Corsidered from this four-dimensional space-time-continuum we must regard X1, X2, X3 t as the four co-ordimate of an event in the four-dimensional continuum. To understand that the event which we say, is taking place just now, may not be so in different system; or again the two simultaneous occurrences of one and the same system may not be so in different systems, we should turn to the modren science of Astronomy. According to it, light travelling at the rate of 186, 284 miles (186 usually taken for convenience sake) a second, takes about 8 minutes to come to earth from the Sun but requires about 4.5 hours to travel from the sun to the Neptune as the distance from the Sun to the Earth is less than that from the Sun to the Neptune. The Sun and its eight planets and many asteroids and comets constitute our solar system, being a little colony amidst the immensely larger group of stars which we call ‘Universe” and which the Astronomers refer to us the galaxy or the Gallic system. The distance of the Sun from the Earth is nearly 9,30,00,000 miles, and of stars from 4 light years to millions or even hundred and fifty millions of light years." Thus our Earth is relatively near the Sun, and that is why the same event or the simulateous events of the one system might seem to be occurring at different times in different nebulae. Thus the difference of views would be relative to the observer; and at the best, knowledge thus derived is only relative.
Saptabhangi or the Doctrine of Seven Modes of forms occupies a very prominent place in Jaina logic. It means “a statement in seven different ways (Saptabhih Prakāraih) of affirmation and negation with the use of the word Syāt (Syachchabdalāñchitah), singly or jointly (Prthagbhūtayoh Samuditayosca) without inconsistency such as that arising from conflict with Pratyaksa as the result of inquiring (Praśnavaśāt), about each of the different predicates (Dharma of a thing such as Satva (existence), etc."12
In other words, it is the use in seven different ways of
11. A light year is the distance travelled by the light in a year. Light travels at the speed
of 1,86,000 miles per second. 12. A. B. Dhruva : 'Syadvāda Mañjari'-Notes, p. 244.