Jain Journal 1968 07

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

Page 44

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tually in existence, that it is timeless both forwards and backwards, that its constituent elements may undergo relative transformation which is covered in their nayavāda and anekāntavada, but that the universe as such neither originates nor ever does it totally cease to exist. The Jaina interest is largely restricted to the structure of the universe as an ordered system,-cosmology, as distinguished from cosmogony-which we will note later in detail in this paper.
JAIN JOURNAL
Modern cosmogony too is based on some such assumptions as are difficult either to prove or disprove. According to one view, nabulae are the parents of stars, stars of planets (?), the sun of the solar system and the planets of the satellites in our solar system. But to the fundamental question, how matter came into existence, science has no scientific answer to offer. Its presence has to be assumed. And then we look into space to discover aggregates where evolution may still be going on and try to arrange our information into an orderly sequence. Thus, for instance, Lemaitre propounded in 1927 that the present high degree of differentiation of matter in space and the complexity of forms of various astronomical objects must have resulted from a violent explosion and subsequent dispersal of originally highly compressed and intensely hot homogeneous material. Compare with this the Hindu view of the termination of the time-cylce when everything goes inside a shell and stays seed-like, till the time-cycle takes a fresh turn. The Gitā says, tāsām Brahmma mahadjonih aham bījaprada pitā (Of them Brahmma is the great mother and I the father sowing the seeds of progeny).
6. Characteristic of the Jaina stand
In the first place, the Jaina stand does not interpolate God of any kind between soul and matter. Second, according to the Jaina view, both loka (space) and aloka (outer-space) are time-less and have always been in existence. The above two points fully agree with the scientific view. Third, according to the Jaina view, both jiva and ajiva (organism and matter) are innumerable and timeless; they have always been in existence and will remain so without losing intrinsic property. This agrees with the scientific view only in part, namely that the presence of matter has to be assumed but unlike the Jaina view, modern science holds that jiva or organism came into existence much later when environment became congenial to its existence. The Jainas, however, hold that the jivas are not only time-less like matter, they are infinite in number and variety at any given moment. In this connection neither the Jainas nor the Hindus believe like Darwin in the gradual evolution of a lower organism into a higher one over time; but both believe in the transmigration