Dr. Mahavir Raj Gelra
Mahapragya preaches that both, psychology and mathematics are necessary for understanding Karma doctrine. He writes that apart from psychology, Karma doctrine is embedded with complexities of mathematics as well. In the last chapter we read about psychology, and now we shall discuss about mathematics. Karma is a fine substance. Fine substance is wavy and in the mathematics of a wave, there is application of advanced mathematical equations, which are difficult to study by an ordinary reader. From this point of view, we shall only introduce the subject sans its details.
In the field of Jain mathematics the work of Professor L.C. Jain, Jabalpur is worthy of mention and appreciation. About the mathematical study of the Karma doctrine, he has written that -
- It is necessary to have the knowledge of the applied symbolism in it before the study of any mathematical system. For an essential and brief study of this system as well as for memorizing them, the commentaries of the Gommatasara, Tiloya-pannatti and Dhavala contain some symbolic material, which was not available in earlier texts. But this material appears on a large scale in the Karnataka - commentary of Kesava Varni in the form of digital symbolism and geometrical symbolism. Similarly, in the commentary of the Labdhisara and Ksapanasara, application of symbolism, possibly by Madhava chandra Traividya and Nemichandra, the disciples of Jnanabhusana (16th century), was exceptionally adopted, and seems to manifest the core of religion through the mathematics of Karma.
- After the knowledge of symbols, there is description of the indivisible-unit. The concept of fundamental indivisible-unit is essential in quantitative description of the qualities of mattereals and karmasomes. In the study of karma theory, there should be knowledge of the degrees of Snighda and Ruksha Sparsh, because they alone are the causes of attraction and repulsion.
When the quadons (sukshma pudgals) become karma on being bound with the soul, they are attracted. Conversely, upon activation they are repelled and get detached from the soul. In Jain literature, eight types of karma have been described. They are the knowledge-obscuring, the vision-obscuring, pathogenic, deluding, incapacitating, lifespan determining, inheritance determining and class determining. Here, as the names suggest, first two karmas are inhibiting, next three are inductive and the remaining three are deterministic. Of these, the deluding and inheriting karmas are of special interest from mathematical point of view.
While the composition of karmic bodies may be a subject of chemistry as it involves the micro particle forces of attraction and repulsion, their behaviour, actions and attributions are more a subject of mathematics. Karmic bodies are in fact take shape of database similar to those stored in a computer's hard disk. These databases then can be subjected to algebra, matrices, topology etc. These mathematical analyses can help in decoding the entire matrix and will enable us to simulate the models by the group analysis of the databases.
Through the mathematical study of karma, the perdictions and probabilities could be known about the (events) of the past and future. Just as diseases are traced through genes, similarly there is a great possibility that the mathematical study of karma will be useful.
