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

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Page 17
________________ science is based on rigid definitions. Whether it is this or that, a choice has to be made. There is no such conflict with the Jain philosophy since Anēkāntavāda is one of the basic premise on which Jain thought has developed. There is no difficulty in saying that light can be both, wave or a particle, or neither, depending on the perspective of the observer and its true nature may never be understood completely. In discussion of these scientific topics, some ideas have been put forth, quoting Jain scriptures, some of which may deserve further study. It is impressive to see that a variety of topics, as diverse as the origin of life to cosmic time cycles were discussed in the ancient scriptures, in quantitative terms and the theory of Karma, which can in rigour, beauty and complexity is as thorough as the quantum theory was formulated by Jain thought. The topics dealing with mantra, yantra, japa, colour and music point out their importance in the Jain philosophy and spiritual practices and have not formed the subject of scientific investigations. It may be easy to feel their effects on human mind but it is difficult to quantify this effect and therefore they have eluded a proper scientific basis. If techniques develop which can measure their effects, scientific theories can then be developed. Celibacy is one of the corner stones of Jain religion and whereas its importance is accepted by the medical world, there are some new aspects which have been brought to light in this book. The bio-electromagnetic energy or extrasensory perception are the topics which are only lately being investigated scientifically. The origin of life on Earth, and in the universe at large, is still not fully understood by scientific investigations made so far. Jainism seems to have a different approach to the problem and is worth further study. In contrast Jain description of geography and human physiology appear rather primitive compared to modern understanding although there may be some elements of human physiology, particularly related to spiritual practices which can form a topic of further research. A series of chapters deal with topics where again, not much thought has been given in the modern science. These mainly concern the food practices. Whereas the modern science has confined at determining the calorific values and its classification into vitamins, proteins and carbohydrate content, the Jain school of thought has gone deep into subtler properties of various types of foods and deals with its psychic as well as physical effects. This forms the basis of several chapters in this book in which an attempt is made to give some rationales behind the Jain food practices, which is an important part of the Jain religious techniques. Long before existence of microscopic life was shown and plants were considered to be living by modern science, these facts were well establishes in Jain philosophy and formed the foundations of complex practices as corollary of nonviolence, which is the basic tenet of Jainism. There can be two complementary approaches for finding parallelism between science and religion. Assume science to be correct and find similarities in religious Jain Education International 14 For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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