Jainism Eternal and Universal Path for Enlightenment

Author(s): Narendra Bhandari
Publisher: Research Institute of Scientific Secrets from Indian Oriental Scriptures Ahmedabad

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Jainism : The Eternal and Universal path for Enlightenment
122
Appendix: 1
Some inconsistencies in Jain geography and cosmology with modern science
Science has made tremendous progress in observational techniques and theoretical modeling during the last four hundred years, since Galileo first looked at celestial bodies with his telescope and Newton enunciated the laws of motion. As mentioned before, Jainism considers Lokvad as an essential part of its darlan and asserts that the truth is intervowen with the universe. We can not therefore ignore the scientific studies. It may be noted here that science and Jainism, both are quests for truth and at least in the physical aspects, they both should be consistent. This has to be considered within the framework of their limitations. Science can be incomplete, always amenable to modification, but can not be wrong as it is based on observations. Of course it carries with it the limitations of indriyas and intellect used for observations and comprehension. Jainism, on the other hand, has no such limitations since the jnin given by Tirthankaras is indriyateet. Unfortunately there is no record of direct and verbatim rendition of words spoken by the Enlightened. They all have been compiled much later and have been subjected to interpretation. They are thus subject to limitations posed by the competence of the compilers.
The glaring inconsistent aspects between Jain scriptures and modern science mainly relate to 1. Geography: Remote sensing by space techniques have given us very clear picture
of geography of the earth and planets 2. Cosmology: Here "cosmology" is taken as to include planetary sciences too.
Under these two general headings, we list below some of the concepts mentioned in the scriptures which appear to be "erroneous": 1. Flat earth concept:
Jambu Dwip Pannati describes the flat earth theory, with two suns and two moons. This theory appears to be a concept prevalent at that time in the west as well as in the orient and does not seem to be an exclusive Jain concept. Some Jain scholars have tried to fit in existence of two suns and two moons in the following manner: There is a theory of formation of planets which postulates that in the beginning, before our