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Scientific Vision of Lord Mahāvīra phraseology. The author has claimed it to be the main contribution of this thesis.
It is interesting to find that the illustrations and the pictures of the universe described in Bhagavatī Sūtra, has relevance with the Einstein's famous question about whether God had any choice in creating the universe? A living physicist of our time, the Lucasian Professor, Stephen Hawking attempts to write that a universe may be finite but with no boundaries, no edge in space, no beginning or no end in time and therefore nothing for a creator to do. It is true that Jainism is the only religion that has propounded for the universe to be eternal, working by its inherent laws and not created by any God or Supreme Being. In the Jain metaphysical system, there is no place for any such God, who creates and regulates the universe. According to the Jain philosophy, Jīva (Living) and Ajiva (Non-living) are the two realities which are responsible for the existence of the universe, which has no beginning or end in time. Jain canonical literature contains many universal laws. To my mind, one of the universal laws is the 'law of opposites' i.e. the universe exists with the realities which have opposite characteristic properties or behavior. The 'opposites' exist simultaneously. For example, Jīva and Ajīva, Loka (cosmos) and Aloka (transcosmos), Dharmastikāya (the medium of motion) and Adharmastikāya (the medium of rest), massless matter and matter with mass and so on. We also observe the opposite properties in the eight forms of tactility of pudgala i.e. cold and hot, oily and dry, soft and coarse, light and heavy.
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Samani Chaitanya Pragya has done a commendable work by unfolding the hidden realities of the Universe, described in Bhagavati Sutra. She has indeed done a Herculean task in bringing the religion and science closer. I heartily welcome the publication of this book.
Dr. Mahavir Raj Gelara Former V. C., J.V.B.I.
