New Dimensions in Jaina Logic

Author(s): Mahaprajna Acharya, Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Today and Tommorrow Printers and Publishers

Page 145

Universal Concomitance
137
the cells of the body are considered as uniform although some among them are vested with specific powers. If properly trained, the skin covering the eye can also see. The teeth, compared with the bones of the ear, are relatively better conductors of sound. A suitable instrument fitted on the teeth can be used as the organ of hearing. In the light of such scientific discoveries, the universal concomitance like 'whatever is sound is audible', will lose its validity. If the sound is perceptible by the teeth also, its concomitance with its perceptibility by the ear loses its universal necessity. In Siddhasenagami's commentary on the Tatt vārthabhāsya, it is said that it is possible to read by means of the fingers. That was not understandable to me at that time. But after some time I read in a scientific journal that a Russian girl could read by means of her fingers and a French girl could perceive colour by her fingers. This was not magic, nor through the power of incantations. The sensory nerves of their fingers became so peculiarly developed that they could discharge the function of the eye. The minutest part of our body is sensitive and is charged with consciousness. If properly developed, any part becomes capable of knowing anything ordinarily known by any sense-organ.
It is generally found in nature that a heavy body falls downward. For instance, a fruit when disjoined from the tree falls down due to its heaviness. This leads to the formulation of the universal law that 'whatever is possessed of heaviness is liable to fall down'. This ancient law of concomitance stands superseded by Newton's Theory of Gravitation and recently by Einstein's Theory of Curvature of Space. 'The heavy body goes downward while the light one goes upward'--this principle is formulated on the basis of weight. Newton established that the downward or the upward movements of two material bodies are determined on the basis of their mass and distance. Both these bodies attract and create motion in each other. The body of a heavier mass attracts a body of lesser mass in proportion to their distance from one another. The mass of the earth is greater compared to the mass of the fruit and so the former attracts the latter. Einstein introduced a change in this theory of Gravitation. According to him a body effects a curvature in the space occupied by it. The downward movement of a body is due to that curvature. With the change of the theories, the natural laws also change or are rather differently formulated on the basis of new knowledge. It thus follows that the idea of validity of a concomitance at all times is mere wishful thinking. One can at best take note of the past and present achievements in science and