Jaina World of Non Living

Author(s): N L Jain
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

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The Jaina world of Non-living
supposed to be not in tune with the current schismic concepts. The text is highly popular in Digambaras while it seems historical in S-section. (ii) The life-sketch of Umāsvāti is not properly available. Each schismic tradition stakes its claim on him. For the D-schism, he may probably be a southern while for S-schism, he is northern. But the author of the text should be a single individual as is supported by the 83% aphorismic commonality. It is not definite how and when the rest 17% changes have taken place and which is the original version? Both sides have strong points in their favour. His biography could, therefore, be prepared on the basis of informations from both the sources. However, a unified stand on his identity seems remote. (iii) Out of many commentaries, the Digambara ones are noted for their logistically and philosophically advanced nature. The majority of them were composed in south in contrast to the S-commentaries composed in the north. All agree that Akalanka's Rājavāritka excels among them. It reflects upon the eighth century state of philosophical and scientific knowledge. In contrast, Vidyānanda's explanatory abounds in inferentail logic and refutation of Buddhas and Mimānsakas. (iv) The Tattvārtha Sūtra has about more than 40% contents related with the physical world indicating its importance even for the spiritualists. Rājavārtika forms about 50% of its contents on the physical world. This supports mostly traditionally authentic views on the basis of logic and polyviewism. However, he seems to have fixed and established many conventions in the field of Jaina logic and encouraged criteria of logical amenability for general considerations. The second and fifth chapters were selected for this work because of their overall physical contents. (v) The physical and contental details of the fifth chapter on the World of Non-living have already been given earlier dealing with different topics related with it. Many of the traditionally accepted concept elaborated in this explanatory on the basis of original text seem to have gone historical after the conceptual advent of Relativity theory and Indeterminacy priciple. (vi) It is seen that the concepts about the various aspects of the nonliving world (and living one also) have made high jumps in this scientific
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