Jain Journal 1968 07

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 40

A JAINA VIEW OF COSMOS
-a comparative study, KASTUR CHAND LALWANI
1. Why a discussion on cosmology is usually abhored
Cosmos must be an ordered system which roused the curiosity of thinking minds in remote past and we cannot say yet, despite all the developments of science, that a finality has been reached in the matter. The subject has, however, been a tough one in which not many are interested at any time. It is full of technical details and cumbrous calculations some of which are not quite congenial even to contemporary outlook. Among the Jaina observers of cosmos, perhaps the most outstanding was Yati Brsabha (A. D. 473-609) who produced the celebrated Tiloya Pannatti, and in the western world, perhaps, Kirfel's Die Kosmographie der Inder was the most systematic exposition on the Indian stand on this subject. Yati Brsabha apart, among other Digambara sources on cosmology deserving mention are Samayasāra, Pañcāstikāya and Pravacanasāra by Bhagvat Kulakundacarya (1st Century Vikrama), Mulācāra by Battakeracarya, Harivamsa Purāna by Jinasena Suri (840 Vikrama), Trilokasāra by Nemi Candra Siddhanta Cakravarty, Jambudvipa Pannatti (11th Century Vikrama), Bhagavati Arādhanā, Loka-Bibhāga, etc. Most noteworthy among the Svetāmbara sources are BỊhat-kşetra-samāsa by Jinabhadra Gani Ksamasramana, Pravacanasārodhāra by Nemi Candra Suri, Jambudvīpa Prajñapti, Bịhat Sangrahani, Loka Prakāśa, etc. These works exist mostly in manuscript form. Tiloya Pannatti has, however, been translated in Hindi and edited by Upadhye and Jain with a competent introduction. This book is particularly important since most other works of Digambara writers have been influenced by it and Harivamsa Purāņa bears striking similarity to it. A second reason why the subject of cosmology is by and large an abhorred branch is that it is too controversial a subject which cannot be tested by observation. The frame concepts and relations in cosmology is a creation of the human mir satisfaction of some emotional or intellectual drive for the purpose of discovering a descriptive order into the world as a whole of which man himself is an important though a microscopic, element. As such it is confined to a description of the salient features of the 'observed' universe in terms of such categories as Space and Time and Matter, leaving questions of origin, inner nature and purpose of the universe to other disciplines like cosmogony, ontology and teleology. The range of observation has not, however, been all uniform, sciences depending for the pur