Jainism

Author(s): Herbert Warren
Publisher: Divine Knowledge Society

Page 21

JAINISM
3. An ether, the fulcrum of motion (dharmastikaya). 4. Another ether, the fulcrum of rest, in the sense of not moving (adharmastikaya).
5. Time, which is in only a figurative sense a substance (kala).
In all these things there is no feeling or consciousness.
MATTER
This is well understood in physics and chemistry. Here the real substance is the atom, the utimate indivisible atom. Matter is made up of atoms, but the atom is not made up of other units. Atoms as at present understood by modern chemistry are far grosser than those contemplated by the Jains. Innumerable atoms as understood by the Jains make when combined the atom of modern chemistry, which is not an ultimate atom.
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TWO ETHERS
Ether, mentioned above, is not matter in the Jain view. Matter has various qualities and relations which these two ethers do not possess.* It is only the Jain philosophy that believes in these two substances. They are the accompanying causes (hetu) respectively of the motion of moving things and beings, and of the stationary state of things and beings that are resting, in the sense of not moving. In each case it is the accompanying cause without which you cannot do.
* See Asiatic Quarterly, July 1900, p. 148.