Religion and Culture of the Jains

Author(s): Jyoti Prasad Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 57

THE DOCTRINE
alone is real and the individual names and forms are more illusions, and the Buddhist ephemerism, transitionalism or nihilism, on the other, according to which there is nothing that may be described as eternal behind the changing forms which alone are perceived by us. Jaina philosophy steers clear its way between these extremist views. As Dr. Upadhye puts it, “the realistic start never allowed any Jaina philosopher to adopt philosophical extremes''. The Jaina stand thus is that a 'real' (dravya or substance) is both permanent and impermanent accordingly as it is looked upon from the point of view of the qualities which constitute it, or from that of the modes or modifications which are constantly occurring in those qualities. Cosmology
This in short is the dogmatical background of Jaina cosmology, which clearly states that the cosmos or universe, with its six basic constituents, the dravyas, is a veritable reality by virtue of its very existence. It is uncreated, self existent, beginningless, endless, eternal and infinite. Cosmography
Jaina cosmography states that the loka, that part of the unbounded, limitless ākāśa, in which all the six dravyas (categories of substance) are found existing side by side, has a definite sha pe and size. It is three-dimensional and measures 343 cubic rājūs* in volume. In shape it resembles the figure of a man standing akimbo with feet apart. The cylindrical section, one rāju in diameter and fourteen rājus in height running from top to bottom in the middle, is the trasa-nāli which alone is inhabited by mobile (trasa) living bodies. The trasa-nāli divided into three parts--the central, the upper and the lower. Right at its top is the crescent shaped adobe of the Siddhas or liberated souls, below which, and above the central part, are located the heavens where celestial beings * Raju, a linear measure, beyond ordinary computation.