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Reals in the Faina Metaphysics Sneha and Dravatva as conditions of atomic combination mean only that it is affinity and attraction which join the elemental corpuscles ?
THE JAINA THEORY OF ATOMIC COMBINATION
The Jaina philosophy does not see the necessity of a worldcreator. According to it, atoms combine without the intervention of a God. This, however does not mean that the world is the result of a fortuitous combination of atoms, a combination purely due to chance. The Jaina's believe neither in the creation nor in the destruction of the world at particular points of time. According to them, the cosmic course is beginningless and endless. Matter is eternal but in its unmodified essence, it does never exist. Gross matter on decomposition terminates in atoms and atoms in their turn are forming or are capable of forming gross things; matter is continually going through modes after modes, so that in the case of the Jaina's the question of matter remaining permanently either as atomic or as gross does not arise'.
1 This is the reason why the author of the Rāja-Vārtika refuses to regard atoms either as uncaused cause or as eternal. It is generally assumed that because on ultimate decomposition, we come to atoms which are not further divisible, we must treat them as 'Parama-Kāraṇam' or ultimate i.e. uncaused cause, 'Nitya' or eternal i,e, indestructible. Even the author of the Pancasti-käyasamaya-sāra describes atoms as 'सव्वेसि खंधाणं जो अंतो तं विआण परमाणू सो सम्दो।'
That which is the Anta or terminating point in the process of decomposition of gross things is the ultimate atom which is eternal. Akalanka Deya, on the contrary, contends that "FITTOTT Terrafachसमीक्षिताभिधानं कथञ्चित् कार्यत्वात्।'
To say that the atom is the Antya Kārana or ultimate cause is not quite correct; because in some respects, it also is a Kārya i.e. has its cause. Atoms are come across only when gross things are decomposed.
__ भेदादणुः ।५।२८। तत्वार्थाधिगमसूत्रम् । so that in some sense atoms also have their cause. _ 'नित्य इति चायुक्तम् स्नेहादिभावेनानित्यत्वात्।'
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