Studies in Jainism

Author(s): M P Marathe, Meena A Kelkar, P P Gokhle
Publisher: Indian Philosophical Quarterly Publication Puna

Page 74

JAINA CONCEPTION OF SPACE AND TIME
3. Function of Ākāśa
The function of ākāśa is to afford room to other substances.13 Other substances exist by their own nature. There is no doubt about it. But they require something to exist in. They do exist by themselves. But wherein do they exist ? They exist in ākāśa. Their existence is not the same as ākāśa. Nor is akāśa an aspect of them. It is a fundamental substance different from them. Thus ā kāśa is a universal container in which all other substances are contained
Some might argue against this Jaina position as follows : if a substance requires other substance to exist in, then ākāśa itself being a substance will also require some other substance and this other substance in its turn will require the third substance to exist in and so ad infinitum. If to avoid this the Jainas were to say that ākāśa does not require another substance to exist in, then they should apply the same logic in the case of other substances also. Thus the conception of ākāśa as a universal container is self-destructive14. Again the Jaina view that ākāśa contains itself is beset with another difficulty, viz. kartrkarmavirodhadosa. It is a rule that in a particular act the subject and the object cannot be one and the same. However sharp a knief may be, it cannot cut itself. However expert an acrobat may be in the art of acrobatics he cannot stand upon his own shoulder. So, ākāśa cannot contain itself.
The Jainas overcome these difficulties as follows : Not all substances require another substance to exist in. The less extensive substance is contained in the more extensive one. This is the special relation that obtains between the container and the contained. Hence, if we conceive a substance infinite in extent and maintain that there is no substance more extensive than it -- not even as extensive as it, then this conception logically compels us to conceive this substance as requiring no other substance to contain it because there is no stubsance more extensive than it to contain it. Ākāśa is such a substance.15 Regarding Kartşkarmavirodhadosa, it does not arise because the function of ākāśa to contain substance is really passive.16 Moreover, that ākāsa contains itself is simply a positive statement of the fact that a kaša being of the infinite and the highest extesion cannot be contained in any other substance.