International Jain Conference 1985 3rd Conference

Author(s): Satish Jain, Kamalchand Sogani
Publisher: Ahimsa International

Page 104

the sage wandered through empty space. He saw a baby in yogic sleep on a banyan leaf. The baby opened his mouth wide enough for the sage to enter. entering the mouth, he saw all the three worlds inside the stomach, thus proving that during a pralaya, all objects merge into Supreme being. He then releases all these objects at the time of new creation.
The submerging of the earth under water has occurred about four times since the beginning of the earth. This fact has been accepted by the modern geologists. They have given it the name of "Glacial Epoch" and in Jain terminology, it is called "Khand Pralaya." The scientists have assigned the Deluge due to the melting of ice at the polar caps.
The Mahapralaya occurs at the end of the life period of the Brahma, which is of 100 years duration, each day and each night of the year being of 4,32,00,00,000 years. In this absolute pralaya, everything in the universe, material as well as nonmaterials, is dissolved into atoms and finally absorbed into the body of Supreme Being. At the time of creation, the process is reversed and our universe can be looked upon as the projection of Lord God himself. The process of dissolution and creation goes on cyclically for eternity.
The concept of Mahapralaya in Jain theory is a different story. The cycle of time here is divided into two parts called Avasarpini and Utsarpini. During the first, there is a gradual decline while during the second, there is a gradual progress. Utsarpini comes again and so on alternately. Each epoch is further divided into six parts. At the and of Avasarpini, there is a situation like Khand Pralaya for 49 days and then creation starts again with the seven day rains of water, milk, butter, amrit and sweet juice respectively.
The following points of difference should be noted between the Hindu and the Jain concepts regarding the Universe:
(1) According to the Hindus, the whole earth is submerged under water 15 times during one kalpa whereas according to the Jains, it is only once during each epoch and that too partially.
(2) According to Hindus, at the time of Mahapralaya, all matter, space and time are engulfed into the Supreme Being and then it is He who unfolds the Universe again, whereas according to Jains, the nature of the Universe is such that after it has completely run down, it regenerates itself by carrying out the cycle in reverse order.
According to modern science, the Universe is gradually running down in the material sense of the word. The scientist say it as that the entropy of the world is tending towards the maximum. This has been proved mathematically by Maxwell from the second law of thermodynamics. In nature, heat is constantly flowing without interruption from a body at a higher temperature to a body at a lower temperature and air automatically flows from a region of high pressure to that of
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