Scientific Secrets of Jainism

Author(s): Nandighoshvijay
Publisher: Research Institute of Scientific Secrets from Indian Oriental Scriptures Ahmedabad

Page 11

A Search for Meeting Points of Science and
Religion
Every religion worth the name is basically a way of life; morality and mental purity are its main concerns. In other words, religion is a science of life. Nevertheless every religion has developed also a philosophy on which its spiritual and moral traditions are based. Its code of conduct or the way of life is a logical deduction of its views and theories pertaining to the physical and metaphysical world. These very philosophies worked as a springboard for the modern science
Jainism is an ancient religion, well known for its rigid code of conduct. It is famous for its philosophy also. A closer look at it will convince every student of philosophy that its approach towards outer as well as inner world is 'scientific'. Jainism does not believe in God Almighty as a creator of the universe; instead. like science, it says that the universe is governed by some fundamental laws. There are very few old religions, which can comply with science. Jainism is one of those science-friendly religions. It has a vast heritage of knowledge buried in c as well as non-canonical books, in which we find a number of facts scattered, which have striking compatibility with modern science. Description of atom and subatomic particles, water as a compound of gas (physics), the value of pi (mathematics), life in vegetables (biology), innumerable suns and moons (astronomy)—these are some references which are considered discoveries of science, but actually are well known to Jainas from thousands of years. There is a good deal of such data in scriptures, which resembles the scientific findings of today, with slight difference. For instance, Jain scriptures say that Earth rests on three layers: 'Ghanādadhi' (solid ocean), Ghanavāta' (solid gas) and 'Tanüvāta' (fine gas). According to geology, earth's upper crust rests on the 'magma', which resembles 'Ghanõdadhi'. Is then magma 'Ghanõdadhi' ? Likewise, Jainism believes in six kinds of living beings. Among them there are 'Prthavikāya' (earth-bodied) and 'Agnikāya' (firebodied) organisms. Scientists have recently found out new organisms-stromatolites which form the crust of rocks and thermophile, which live in heat. Are stromatolites 'Pfthavikāya' of Jain scriptures and thermophiles 'Agnikāya'? There are so many 'secrets' in Jain literature which may turn out scientific truths, as the research goes on. We cannot rule out all this to be mere coincidence or accidents. There are many other things-pyramids, astrology, ESP, OBE, mantra etc. etc.which already suggest that our ancestors knew more than we thought they knew
Here some questions may be raised: If they knew so many things, which have been discovered by scientists only after life long aitempts of research and experiments, then why there are gaps in the picture of the universe presented by the scriptures? Why we face differences and difficulties in comparison of scientific data with scriptural data?