Role of Space Time in Jainas Syadavada and Quantum Theory

Author(s): Filita Bharucha
Publisher: Shri Satguru Publications

Page 15

Chapter II
Jaina's View of Reality as Modern
Thoughts of Space and Time
Before we begin the actual theory of Syädvåda of Jainism in relevance to its connection in relations with space and time and how its resembles the space-time unification in the 20th century, we shall start with its epistemological background.
The Jainas bring the whole universe under one or other of two everlasting categories. The two class of things are respectively described as jiva and ajiva, i.e. the conscious and the unconscious or spirit and non-spirit the latter including not merely matter but also time and space. The terms show clearly the realistic and relativistic standpoint of Jainism. As surely as is a subject that know, Jainism says, so surely is there an object that is known. Of them, the ajiva has its own specific nature, but that nature cannot be properly understood until it is contrasted with the jiva. That is why it is designated as 'notjiva' or the contradictory of jiva. The latter is the higher and more important category, which accounts for its independent designation, although that also can be well understood only when contrasted with the ajiva or non-spirit:
(1) Jiva - The notion of jiva in general corresponds to that of at man or purpose of the other schools of Indian thought. But as implied by the etymology of its name 'what lives is animate'- the concept seems to have been arrived at first by observing the characteristics of life and not through the search after a metaphysical principle underlying individual existence. The Jainas believe not only that the jiva exists but also that it