JAINA Convention 2005 07 JCNC

Author(s): Federation of JAINA
Publisher: USA Federation of JAINA

Page 65

standing of the religious path towards truth may vary based on the substance, place, time and spirit of that period.
As we have seen, there are aspects of Jainism that have been verified by modern science and can withstand the scrutiny of logic and reasoning, as well as resonate with the real or mathematical observations. And then there are aspects of Jainism that are beyond the grasp of today's Science, and have to be accepted by the followers strictly based on faith. With advanced scientific methods and observations, these too might be accepted to be scientific, or they might not, and remain in the realm of metaphysics and faith based beliefs.
So is Jainism a Scientific religion? In other words, can Science treat the Jain beliefs as proposed hypothese and try to see if these could be proven to be theories based on experiments? This question probably is not very relevant. What is relevant is the glory of Jain Heritage. If we can express this glory or atleast some portions of it in scientific terms, then our future generation will be able to appreciate our faith better and start practicing it. Once they start practicing the faith, they will start realizing the glory of their own soul. Once one starts realizing the inner-self, scientific methods for religious practices becomes irrelevant.
We have included an article by Dr. Bhandari, who not only brings to light the similarities of Jain Darshan with modern physics but also the importance of express ing it in a scientific language. In this context, Prof. Kanti V. Mardia from The University of Leeds has published a book called The Scientific Foundations of Jainism, expressing many of the Jain concepts in a scientific manner.
JA INA
2015
ᅲᅲ
Extending Jain Heritage in Western Environment
59 www.fainelibrary.org