Microcosmology Atom in Jain Philosophy and Modern Science

Author(s): Jethalal S Zaveri, Mahendramuni
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

Page 231

A Critique
213 while the law of construction is perfectly determinate. And again the individual elements themselves may turn out to be systems of infinite complexity. Thus, the unity of ultimate principle, in no way, excludes its possession of a wealth of detail infinitely infinite."
BOTH ARE EQUALLY REAL
Jains take a further important step forward. In the allembracing systematic whole - Physical Reality, the unity and the multiplicity are equally real and each is real through the other. How is this possible ? Because the whole universe forms a single experience and is truly real and the parts are single experiences and also real. This will perhaps be brought out by examining some typical case of the kind of unity in multiplicity : (a) The unity of the world cannot be that of mere ac
cumulation or conglomeration. In a mere conglomeration, the elements are real, independently of their relation to one another as elements in the conglomeration. So the conglomeration has no unitary character of its own. Its unity consists in nothing more than the fact that we have found it convenient to think of its ele
ments together, (b) A machine is much more than a mere conglomeration,
because it has a character as a whole. Yet in this case, it cannot be said, that the unity and variety are equally real. Or the whole cannot exist without the parts where as the parts may continue to exist, though not as parts of this whole, without the whole. Living organism is a truer unity than a mere machine. Here, the whole is not subsequent and generated by the parts. It is not the resultant but the living unity. But even an organism, like a machine, fails to exhibit the perfect systematic unity of the one and the many, because not every member is of vital significance for the life of the whole. But in a complete systematic unity, assert the Jains, the unity and the multiplicity of the system must be equally real and equally interdependent. This can only be the case, if the whole is for its parts as well as the parts for the whole.
(c)
Ist