Jaina Gazette 1930 03

Author(s): Ajitprasad, C S Mallinath
Publisher: Jaina Gazettee Office

Page 5

48
THE JAINA GAZETTE
much is certain that according to scientific thought an ultimate material Atom is but a point, a seat of potentialities or forces, as modern science calls them.
In the Sankhya philosophy, the Sthula Bhutas or gross material elements are said to evolve from the Tanmatras or subtle elements. These Tanmatras are of Rupa, of Rasa, etc., etc. This clearly means that the Tanmatra or the subtle element is devoid of all the characteristics of a gross material thing. It is not conceived as a hard or impenetrable substance, filling space. It is rather a potentiality, becoming explicit in i.e., explaining Form (Rupa), Taste (Rasa) and so on. With reference to the characteristics of a gross thing, the subtle material elements of the Sankhya philosophers, far from being hard and space-filling Atoms, may be treated as almost immaterial. They are potentialities. This practically immaterial character of the Subtle Matter in the Sankhya philosophy is further apparent from the fact that the Tanmatras are said to have come out of Ahamkara,—not certainly a hard and impenetrable substance,-but an immaterial principle from which the senses are generated. At any rate, Matter in the Sankhya system, is only a potentiality and has not certainly Extension and Impenetrabilits as its primary attributes.
The Anu' of the Nyaya philosophy also is not identical with the Atom of the Greeks. We are told that Manas or Mind is an Anu. (Vide Nyaya-Sutra 3-2-63). This doctrine seems to set aside all attempts to identify And with the impenetrable and space-filling Atom; for, Manas cannot be said to be a hard substance. As regards the nature of a material Anu, Golama states significantly in aphorism 4-2-20_that there is no ' within' or without' in an 'Anu'. What can it be, then, but a geometrical point,-a metaphysical centre ? An impenetrable and extended substance like an Atom,-howover infinitesimally small it may be, must have an interior and exterior, and if Anu has no 'Antar' and 'Bahir,' as Gotama contends, it is certainly different from the Atom of