Scientific Vision of Lord Mahavira

Author(s): Chaitanyapragyashreeji
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

Page 11

Preface
I feel highly privileged to be invited to write this preface to the book "Scientific Vision of Lord Mahāvīra (With Special Reference to Bhagavati Sūtra)" which I regard as the greatest philosophical work that has come out of Jain Vishva Bharati Institute (Deemed University). Samani Chaitanya Pragya has been awarded the degree of doctor of philosophy on this remarkable thesis which has all the boldness and brilliance of thought characteristic of Jain Scientific mind. This thesis seeks to communicate and revitalize in relevance to modern science. It is well known that Bhagavatī Sūtra is the encyclopedic work on Jainism. The author has very widely and rightly selected the issues which are philosophical and scientific both from the voluminous Bhagavati Sūtra. The vital issues are on the universe, space and time, the theory of pudgala, the theory of atom and the biological elements discussed in the Bhagavati Sūtra. i.e. the focus remained on the scientific topics related mainly to Physics, Cosmology and Biology.
During nineteenth and twentieth century science became too technical and mathematical that the philosophers reduced the scope of inquiries so much that Wittegenstein, the most famous philosopher of this century said, "The sole remaining task for the philosophy is the analysis of language." But, we find that the author of this book has brought this idea in the forefront that the Jainism has still to give a lot of theoretical concepts in the field of science. Though the subject of the thesis is not a new one but with the advent of science this subject has gained tremendous importance in present time. Earlier writers on Jain philosophy and science tried to discover scientific properties of Jain Concepts but the author's work is unprecedented in magnitude and complexity in the sense that it has interpreted the Jain technical terms in modern