Concept of Matter in Jaina Philosophy

SR No.: 001663
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: J C Sikdar
Publisher: P V Research Institute Varanasi
Publication Year: 1987
Total Pages: 412
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, & Physics
File Size: 23 MB

Page 292

Atomic Structure of Matter
257
māņu is non-living, because there is no essential quality of livingness in it. It possesses existentiality (i. e. quality of being) which is inferable by the mark of its effect. It is devoid of mass, for it is a unitary material substance, but it possesses a capacity to become corporeal or to assume a form of mass or corporeality by combining with other paramānus.? So paramāņu can be called corporeal because of its capacity of assuming corporeality.
There are only four inherent properties in paramāņu, viz. colour, smell, taste and touch, but it is devoid of shape. The shape ·āyata’ (oblong) commences only from a combination of two paramāņus having two space-points? or units. A paramāņu is endowed with a capacity of kriyā (activity or movement); it can move from one place to another and make movements, but its movements are uncertain, i. e. accidental. It does not disintegrate nor does it break up or split up nor does it get scattered nor does it itself integrate by getting disintegrated, broken up and scattered. But it attains aggregation by combining with another paramāņus or paramāņu and it dissociates from that aggregation by giving up that state. A paramāņu is not of the
1. Paramānuprabhịtayo'anantānantapradeśaskandhaparyava
sānāsta eva rūpavattāmananyasādhāranžmanekarūpaparinatisāmarthyāpāditasūksmasthūlavišesāvisesaprakarsāprakarsavartinim bibhrati, TS. Bhā. ȚI., p. 325; Matrāvadhāryate, taddhi na jātucidaticiraparicitaparamānudvyanukādikramavşddhadravyakālapamujjhati sāmarthyācca pudgalā api na tāṁ vihāya vartante, ataḥ pudgalā eva rūpiņa iti susthūcyate, Ibid. Esāmiti pudgalānāṁ paramānudvyaņukādikramabhājām uktalaksanam rūpam mūrtih sa vidyata iti rūpinaḥ, TS, Bhā. TI, p. 325; Pārthivāpyataija savāyaviyaņavao ' apyekajätiyāḥ kadācit kāñcit pariņatiṁ bibhrato na sarvendriyagrāhyā bhavanti, ato rūparasagandhasparaśā eva visistapariņāmānugrhytāḥ santo mūrtivyapadeśabhājo bhavanti, TS., p. 324.