Religion and Culture of the Jains

Author(s): D C Sirkar
Publisher: University of Calcutta

Page 24

II JAIN COSMOGRAPHY Sm. Sudha Sengupta, Delhi University
The question about the origin and shape of the universe we live in engaged the attention of men from time immemorial and numerous speculations were made by thinkers of all ages. This is evident in the religious literatures. Whereas the question of the origin and eternity or otherwise has been tried to be solved in the Brāhmaṇical literature in various ways, the Buddha dismissed it outright as avyākatu or inexplicable and unnecessary. The Jains also propounded some theories, criticising both the Brāhmaṇical and Buddhist points of view, according to which the world is created and destroyed by reason of the combination and disintegration of a number of elements (jada) and consciousness (cetana), which are eternal. As the component parts are eternal, so, in spite of the apparent changes, the world is also eternal, without primordium or annihilation. For them, therefore, there is no cosmogony.
But they have a well-defined cosmography almost on the lines of the Brāhmaṇical Purāņas, but at the same time considerably different from them in certain respects, particularly regarding the theory of the heavens and hells. Indian cosmography as a whole is quite interesting and Jain cosmography, which is a part thereof, may be said to be the more interesting. A few of its salient features may be mentioned here. In the first place, the cosmographical details are worked out in an elaborate plane; secondly, the details have close connection with the Jain metaphysical and ethical doctrines; thirdly, the entire range of Jain literature is so much permeated with these details that a clear understanding of them needs a constant reference to standard works on cosmography; and lastly, there is found in them, a good deal of knowledge of contemporary mathematics. For these reasons, the study of
1 Jambudipapannattisargaha (ed. H. L. Jain and A. N. Upadhye. Jain Samskrit Samrakshaka Samgha, Sholapur), Intr., p. 10 (henceforth mentioned as JPS).