Reals on the Jaina Metaphysics

Author(s): Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: Shatnidas Khetsy Charitable Trust Mumbai

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CHAPTER 3 THE PRINCIPLES OF MOTION AND REST DHARMA AND ADHARMA The subjects that we take up for consideration in this chapter are two of the non-psychical Reals of the Jaina metaphysics, viz, Dharma and Adharma, the principles of Motion and Rest. The customary mode of discussing the Reals in the Jaina philosophy, invariably followed by the thinkers of the past was to take up the most important of them, viz, the Jiva or the conscious Subject first and then the Pudgala or the unconscious Matter, the defiler of the pure nature of the psychical Real. Next in order come for consideration the two non-psychical Reals, Akāśa and Kāla, i.e. Space and Time in which the two foregoing Reals, Soul and Matter have their being. Last of all are taken up the two accompanying causes of Motion and Rest of the moving and the stopping substances respectively, the Dharma and the Adharma.
The ancients, of course, had a reason for following this order. With them, the study of philosophy was not merely a pursuit of knowledge, but a search for the way to liberation of man, who, with the thinkers of all the schools of Indian Philosophy was a miserable being in bondage, subjected to ceaseless pains and the fleeting pleasures of the world. This honest search for the way necessitated a con. sideration of the nature of man and what constituted the fetters, for him. The Jiva and the Pudgala were for this reason the first subjects for consideration with the ancients; the Jiva in whom all were directly interested and the Pudgala, which was the cause of his bondage. Space and Time were connected with Jiva's bondage, no doubt, but not so directly as Matter. Dharma and Adharma,the conditions of Motion and Rest of substances were not recognised by the other schools of Indian Philosophy, and although with the Jaina's they were Reals, they were