Reals on the Jaina Metaphysics

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

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Space conceived by them as eternal, inactive and indestructible; how then is evolution possible in the case of Praksti? If thus Prakști cannot evolve, the derivation of Space from it is impossible.
प्रधानविकार आकाशमितिवन, तत्परिणामाभावात् आत्मवत् । Then again, a pitcher which is an evolution from Prakști is admittedly destructible, corporeal and limited; how then can Space, evolving as it does from Praksti be eternal, formless and all-pervasive ?
किंव यथा घटस्यप्रधानविकारस्यानित्यत्व मूर्तत्वमसर्वगतत्त्व च तथाकाशस्य FAIT! The Jaina's thus contend that the Sāmkhya theory of the derivative reality of Akāśa is inconsistent. Space, according to them, is self-existent and eternal. On this point, there is thus unanimity between the Nyāya and the Jaina schools of thought. THE NYĀYA THEORY OF SPACE
On the other hand, although the Nyāya philosophers oppose the Vedāntins by maintaining that Space is selfexistent and eternal, they agree with them that it is material in essence, that Sound is its distinctive attribute and that we infer the existence of Space from its attribute Sound. They contend that Space is an all-pervasive substance but
1 the same it is a material element like the material substrata of Earth, Water, Air and Fire.
SPACE, TRANSLATED AS ETHER: HAECKEL'S THEORY OF ETHER: SOMEWHAT SIMILAR TO THE THEORY OF ĀKĀśA of THE VEDIC SCHOOL
Akāśa is the Indian name for Space. Akāśa is also translated as Ether. Scientists have not yet been able to determine the nature of Ether finally. “Although, however, the existence of Ether”, said Haeckel, "is now received as a positive fact by nearly all physicists and although many effects of this remarkable substance are familiar to us through an