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INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
the conception of ākāśa as a universal container is self-destructive. Again, the Jaina view that ākāśa contains itself is beset with another difficulty, viz kartrkarmavirodhadosa. It is a rule that in a particular act the subject and the object cannot be one and the same. However sharp a knife may be, it cannot cut itself. However expert an acrobat may be in the art of acrobatics he cannot climb his own shoulder. So, ākāśa cannot contain itself.
The Jainas overcome these difficulties as follows : Not all substances require another substance to exist in. The less extensive substance is contained in the more extensive one. This is the special, relation that obtains between the container and the contained. Hence, if we conceive a substance infinite in extent and maintain that there is no substance more extensive than it - not even as extensive as it -,then this conception logically compels us to conceive this substance as requiring no other substance to contain it because there is 'no substance more extensive than it to contain it. Akāśa is such a substance. Regarding kartrkarmavirodhadosa, it does not arise because the function of ākāśa to contain substances is really passive. 16 Moreover, that ākāsa contains itself is simply a positive statement of the fact that ākāsa being of the infinite and the highest extension cannot be contained in any other substance.
Can ākāsa function as a condition of motion ? The Jaina answer to this question is emphatic 'no'. They contend that if it be also the condition of motion, then wherever there is ākāśa, there should be chance of motion; but neither a single Jiva, nor a single body nor a single atom could step beyond the limit of universe (loka), though there is ākāśa beyond the univere. If ākāśa were credited with the function of assisting motion, then it being present in aloka (nonUniverse) also the division of loka and aloka would disappear, the loka (Universe) would dissipate, the atoms would disperse in the infinite space, they would be very far from one another, they would hardly come in contact with one another to form material bodies.!?
Regarding the capacity of ākāśa to contain substances or their instances, one should note that those that obstruct one another cannot be contained in the same portion of space whereas those that do not obstruct one another can be contained in the same portion of space. Though space gives room to all substances or their instances, it never contains the two mutually obstructing things in the same portion.
