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A Critique
135
The Jain Philsosphers, as we have seen in the 2nd chapter, have developed a unique way of dealing with paradoxical aspect of the Reality.
The most striking parallel between the notions of atomic physics and those of Jain philosophy is the principle of the unification of the opposites. In philosophy, the problems of ONE and MANY as well as of permanence and change are as old as philosophy itself. In modern science, the recent exploration of the subatomic world has revealed unification of concepts which had hitherto seemed opposite and irreconcilable.
Ancient Jain philosophers have been aware of the relativity and poiar relationship of all opposites. "Opposites" assert Jains, "are abstract concepts belonging to the realm of thought and as such are relative." Awareness that only what is permanent can change is the mainstay of the law of Non-absolutism (anekāntavāda). Similarly, large and small, heavy and light, cold and hot, hard and soft are polar opposites. The Jains always emphasized the paradoxical opposites, instead of by passing or concealing them as done, usually, by the absolutist philosophies of Vedānta and Buddhism. The dual and paradoxical aspect of matter at atomic and subatomic level can be properly understood if one applies the principle of anekānta vāda. Since this is a metaphysical subject, it would be more appropriate to deal with it in the succeeding section.
In the mediaeval period, there flourished many Jain scholars, whose interests were wholly literary or spiritual. Even though they contributed a great deal in the fields of mathematics, logic and perhaps astronomy, their contribution to the growth of scientiific knowledge was almost negligible. In the meantime, modern sciences had become firmly established by a wholly independent growth in the West, and was almost wholly put to a material end, with utter disregard to the existence of consciousness, thereby removing any plausible basis for comparison between modern science of the West and traditional knowledge of the East. Surprisingly, however, as we have seen in first chapter (see p. 51), some of the eminent physicists (e.g. David Bohm and Goeffrey Chew) have come to recognise that (non-material) consciousness,
