Dr. N.L. Kachhara
The Big Bang Theory, which is widely accepted by scientists, is also predicted by the red shift given by Hubble's law based on astronomical measurements. The red shift is supposed to occur mainly due to the expansion of space, which causes emitted photons to stretch to longer wave-lengths and lower frequency during their journey of millions and billions of light years. Jain philosophy offers an alternative explanation for the stretching of photons in such long journeys.
A photon is made of varganas of the mass category. A photon is supposed to be chargeless and so it must be an aggregate of two or more varganas (since a vargana has charge). In fact, photons of different frequency must contain differing numbers of varganas. These and other kinds of varganas of both the weightless and weighted categories are found all over the middle loka. These varganas travel in all directions at any given location. A photon traveling in space may encounter and collide with other photons or varganas traveling in different directions. The possibility of collision will certainly exist when travel is on a galactic scale ranging over millions of light-years. As a result of such collisions, it is expected that some of the varganas or parts of varganas or paramanus will be knocked off, reducing the number of paramanus and hence the energy of the photon. A photon with a smaller number of varganas or paramanus also becomes less dense and will occupy more space than before. Consequently, the frequency of the photon shall decrease, and the wavelength will increase when considering the travel of photons on a galactic scale. This frequency decrease can be expected to be greater with greater distances of travel and a greater number of possible collisions of photons. Thus, there is no need to make an unrealistic assumption about the expansion of space to explain Hubble's law. Jain philosophy supports a steady state of the universe and rejects the concept of an expanding universe.
Akasa in Jain philosophy is real, infinite, eternal and one indivisible unit; it cannot have any expansion. The expansion of space assumed by scientists obviously raises the question: what is it expanding in? There can be no expansion without the presence of space; if space is already present, what is the meaning of expansion? Jain philosophy offers a way out of all such unrealistic assumptions. The Big Bang inferred by the extrapolation of Hubble's observations is imaginary and did not take place.
