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Glory of Jain Culture
MATHEMATICAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE JAINA SCHOOL OF THOUGHT
L.C. Jain * S.K. Jain ** "The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seen to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be voluntarily reproduced and combined"
-Albert Elinstein, Ideas and Opinions, Calcutta, 1979.
1. Introduction
The word, "Mathematical Philosophy", seem to have originated by Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), the world famous author of the "Principia Mathematica" in the coauthorship of Whitehead. Russell is also known as the creator of the Russell paradox in the fringes of the set theory of the infinities propounded by Georg Cantor (1845-1918) According to him the early Greek geometers passing from the empirical rules of Egyptian landsurveying to the general propositions by which those rules were found to be justifiable, and then to Euclid's axioms and postulates, were engaged in mathematical philosophy. Recently it has been observed that the Jaina School of Mathematics was also engaged in the mathematical philosophy contained the Karma theory of the Purvas (the second and the fifth) still in possession of the Digambara Jaina School with its mathematical manoeuvre through symbolism. This can be seen in the project of the Labdhisara (1984-1987) at the Indian
National Science Academy, New Delhi. The last worker in this field was the Pandita Todaramala of Jaipur (c. 1721-61) on whom an article has already been published in the Indian Journal of History of Science, It was due to his undying credit to have given a guide to the non-universal mathematics of the Karma theory contained in the Dhavalas and the Gommatasara, the Tiloyapannatti and the Trilokasara. These monumental works are due to the credit of Virasenacarya (c. 9th century), Nemicandra Siddhanata cakravarti (c. 11th century), Madha vacandra Traividya (c. 12th century) and Kesava Varni (c. 13th century A.D.), of the Digambara Jaina School.
It was already felt by Boole, Frege and Russell that deeper realms of philosophy could be approached only through words or symbols which could express the propositions between the truth and untruth. The parallel to this is the concept of the Syadvada in the Jaina philosophy. Thus the status of an object being relative to different
* Director, Acharya Shri Vidyasagar Research Institute, over Diksha Jewellers, 554 Sarafa, Jabalpur. ** Computer Centre, D.N. Jain College, Gol Bazar, Jabalpur.
Mathematical Philosophy in the Jaina School of Thought
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