आचारांग : वैज्ञानिक परिप्रेक्ष्य में

Summary

The text discusses the Ācārāṅga Sūtra, a prominent Jain Āgama text. It explains that Lord Mahāvīra, through his extraordinary knowledge, realized the soul's existence is tri-temporal, spanning past, present, and future. However, for the common person, perceiving the soul was problematic because it is formless and not directly perceptible to the senses. At the time of Mahāvīra, there were differing views on the soul's tri-temporal existence; some accepted only its present existence, while others accepted its tri-temporal nature but could not fully comprehend it. This problem is presented in the initial sūtras of the Ācārāṅga. The text notes that the Ācārāṅga has eight studies (adhyayanas), as the seventh is lost, with a total of 44 sections (uddeśakas). Ācārya Mahāprajña's recent commentary has established new dimensions for its study. The text aims to examine whether the Ācārāṅga's writing style contains elements of the scientific method, using the first twelve sūtras of the first study as a model. The proposed experiment's objective is to determine if the soul exists. The hypothesis is that rebirth is a prevalent concept in Indian thought, and the Ācārāṅga attempts to prove the soul's existence through rebirth. The problem is that people lack awareness of their past lives. The first sūtra states that some people do not know from which direction they came. The text interprets this as a spatial and temporal question, linking the six directions (east, west, north, south, upward, downward) to the three dimensions of space (length, width, height/depth). It suggests that the Ācārāṅga indicates the three-dimensional nature of space 2,500 years ago. The second sūtra further clarifies the problem by questioning one's past and future identity. The text explains that