________________
Space
or accompanying cause or occupations.'
87
condition of these space
I Almost in the same language in which he established the reality of Dharma and Adharma, Prabhäcandra says with respect to the real existence of Akāśa.
Jain Education International
युगपन्निखिलद्रव्यावगाहः साधारणकारणापेक्षस्तथावगाहत्वान्यथानुपपत्तः
The expression is important here. In the case of Dharma and Adharma, it was pointed out that although things had the capacity to move or stop, the phenomena of their simultaneous movements and stoppages proved the reality of common attendant causes, viz., Dharma and Adharma. In the same way, in the case of Akāśa also it is said that although substances have the capacity to occupy places the phenomenon of their simultaneous occupations of spaces proves the reality of Akāśa as the common attendant condition of these space-occupations. We have seen how the expression led Dr. Seal to think that Dharma was "something more than the attendant cause of motion, as it was the principle that brought about the order or system in the movement of substances in the universe." We ventured to disagree with the view of Dr. Seal and we pointed out that the word did not imply that Dharma was responsible for the ordered movements in the world of ours. The use of the expression in connection with the argument about Space, supports our contention that the word was not intended for explaining any order or system that we find in the world. If the word had such an implication, Akāśa also would have some claim over some such order or system. The fact is that the Jaina philosophers infer the reality of Akāśa from the phenomena of simultaneous space-occupations by substances, just as they think that the phenomena of the simultaneous motions and stoppages of things proved the reality of Dharma and Adharma. The phenomena of the simultaneous motions and stoppages of things was not meant by the Jaina's to imply that Dharma was the cause of the ordered motions in the world, any more than it was their intention to contend that the simultaneous space-occupations by things proved that Akāśa was the cause of some sort of system in respect of some ordered phenomena.
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