Illuminator of Jaina Tenets

Author(s): Tulsi Acharya
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

Page 21

INTRODUCTION
In the light of the above-mentioned concepts of ākāśāstikaya, dharmastikāya, adharmāstikāya and kala, a complete description of any thing or event, in motion or in rest, would depend on a proper reference to the specific space-point and time-point related to the thing or event. The oft-mentioned Jaina formula that the determination of any thing should be made with reference to the dravya, kṣetra (place), kāla and bhāva (attribute) of that thing is to be understood in the light of this mutual relationship between space and time, as well as a substance and its attributes.
A short account of the concepts of space and time in western and modern thought will help the reader in appreciating the Jaina concepts.1 Space is popularly thought of as an all-pervading ether or as some sort of container allowing a thing to move from one place to another. The concept of empty space was not generally entertained, though Democritus and the atomists clearly distinguished between the atoms and the void which separated them. Lucretius wrote of space as though it were a container. Plato thought of space as a receptacle, the fostermother of all becoming. Aristotle tried to define place by reference to the cosmos as a whole. He thought of the cosmos as a system of concentric spheres, and the outermost sphere of the cosmos would, in his view, define all other places in relation to itself. Descartes held that the essence of matter is extension, and so, there can be no such thing as a vacuum Leibniz held a relational theory of space. Space is merely a system of relations in which indivisible substances, or "monads", stand to one another. Kant argued against both a naive absolute theory of space and a relational view. He held that space is something merely subjective. Newton held absolute theories of space and time. What is important in Newtonian dynamics is not the notion of absolute space but that of an inertial system. Psychologically, it was convenient for Newton to think of inertial axes as though they were embedded in some sort of ethereal jelly-absolute space. Newton could equally have taken up the position, later adopted by Mach, that inertial systems are determined not by absolute space but by the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe.
The theory of relativity certainly forces us to reject an absolute theory of space, if by this is meant one in which space is taken as quite
1 What follows is based on the articles on "Space" and "Time" in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, 1972).