Reals on the Jaina Metaphysics

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

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Reals in the faina Metaphysics extensive experience .... yet we are still far from being clear and confident as to its real character. The views of the most eminent physicists who have made a special study of it, are extremely divergent; they frequently contradict each other on the important points”. Professor Haeckel's own views about Ether are given below and it would be interesting to compare them with the corresponding doctrine of the Nyāya, Vaiseșika and the Vedānta schools. 1. “Ether”, according to Haeckel, “fills the whole of
space .... as a continuous substance; it fully occupies the space between the atoms of ponderable matter". This is also the view of the Vedic school,
regarding the nature of Ākāśa. 2 and 3. "Ether”, according to Haeckel, "has probably
no chemical quality and is not composed of atoms”. “I postulate for ether” says he, “a special structure which is not atomistic". The Vedic theory of Akāśa
agrees with this. 4 and 5. “It (Ether) is neither gaseous .... nor solid”.
“Ether may be called imponderable matter in the sense that we have no means of determining its weight experimentally”. The theory of the Ākāśa of the Vedic
schools of philosophers may not dispute these points. 6 and 7. "The etheric consistency”, says Haeckel, "may
probably .... pass into the gaseous state ....just as a gas may be converted into a fluid and ultimately into a solid, by lowering its temperature”. “Consequently, these three conditions of matter may be arranged .... in a genetic, continuous order. We may distinguish five stages in it: (1) the etheric, (2) the gaseous, (3) the fluid, (4) the viscous (in the living protoplasm) and (5) the solid state.” The etheric, the gaseous, the fluid and the solid states of matter are readily admitted by all the Vedic schools of philosophers in India, including the Nyāya and the Vedānta. But there is a difference of views regarding the question whether "the etheric consistency may