Scientific Secrets of Jainism

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

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Scientific Secrets of Jainism
day and night of the two and a half continents. Similarly, 80 or 82 days are discounted from the life-span of an astronaut who lives in space for 80 or 82 days. But it is said that there has no experience of day and night.
The Nyāya and Vaiśēşika systems of thought also accept Kāla (time) as a separable material cause. They also believe that time is a substance.
Is time substance or not? On this point, too, there is a difference of opinions among Jain philosophers. Referring to this, the author of the Tattvārtha Sūtra states : tartalo 11 kālaścētyēkē .. (Sūtra 38 Cha. 5). i.e. Some Ācāryas believe that time is also a substance. The scriptures of the Digambar tradition attach a special importance to the five substances : 1. Jiva (soul) 2. dharma (medium for motion) 3. adharma (medium for rest) 4. space and 5. matter. But Acārya Nemicandra, the Digambar Jain philosopher, says in the following gāthā i.e. verse of his' Dravyasangraha ' that time has as many particles i.e. paramāņus (atoms) as the cosmic space has pradēśas (space-points). :
लोयायासपदेसे इक्किक्के जे ठिया हु इक्किक्का । रयणाणं रासी इव ते कालाणू असंखदव्वाणि ।। löyāyāsapadēsē ikkikkē jē thiyā hu ikkikkā. rayaņāņam rasi iva tē kālāņū asarkhadavvāņi ..
From the view points of vartnā, (perduration), pariņāma (transformation), kriyāparatva (activity), aparatva (non-activity), the real time i.e. time is absolute and it is acceptable to Niscayanaya (the definitive stand-point). But as long as space is considered from the practical view point, the time is relative. Digambar Jain scriptures show that space and time are co-related with each other. Similarly, the modern physics also accepts that time is in every space point. To the three dimensional world, Einstein adds the fourth dimension called time-space continuum.
Jain scriptures believe that time, the non-spatial continuum pervades the whole cosmos (Lāka) because it is related to verious transformations of substances and the living element (soul) and the element pudgala i.e. matter pervade the whole cosmos, all the fourteen Rājalõka. Einstein explains this with time-space continuum. A simple illustration can be given as under:
Suppose there are three points A, B and C in a straight line in space at a distance of 30 lakh kilometres from one another.