Book Title: Scientific Contents in Prakrta Canons
Author(s): N L Jain
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

Previous | Next

Page 345
________________ Contents of Physics 1 Heat and Light : 323 - (iii) Iron-attracting power of natural magnets, serpentattracting power of incantations and use of rotators. (iv) Non-observation of intervening objects and applied collyrium etc. The above comparative desription leads us to judge how much the current knowledge has developed qualitatively and quantitatively over the canonical and logicians' periods in this regard. This enables us to think about composing twentieth century new canons. Colours Jainas call mattergy by the term 'rūpi' which means it is sense-perceptible. It has a set of four inseparably co-existing qualities of touch, taste, smell and colour including shape. Thus, colour is one of the fundamental qualities of mattergy. It refers to two meanings, the colour and the shape of the coloured. It is obvious that the eyes and light are responsible for the sensation of colour and its shape. Thus, colour is also a phenomenon associated with light. The early canons like Sūtrakṛtānga"1 and Samavāyānga 72 mention the colours on the basis of common examples like golden (yellow), fire (red), light beam (white), pigeon (black or grey ), peacock-neck (blue), parrot neck ( green ), divine ( ash-grey), saffron (yellow), tail of blue pigeon (green) and the like. Despite the fact that rainbow colours are taken to be seven, volitional aural colours are taken as six, the canons agree with five colours. Most canons do not mention much about how colour sensation is felt. Normally, colour is mostly objective depending upon structural units of the objects, though some subjectivity may also be involved in it. Recently Muniśri73 Jain74 and Jain75 have thrown some comparable light on this matter pointing out two facts: (i) There are only three basic colours blue, yellow and red approved by science. The rest two may be called so only empirically. Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only — www.jainelibrary.org

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608