________________
Räjgeetä
On the other hand, the body is the aggregation of lifeless matter called Pudgal. It does not have knowing capability. Touch, taste, sight and smell are its principal attributes. Heavy or light, rough or smooth, hot or cold, and sticky or dry are the eight types of touch, of which every Pudgal particle has four types. Sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, and acrid are the five types of taste, and every particle can have one or more of those tastes. Violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red are the seven colors (The scriptures specify only five, viz. white, black, yellow, red, and green). Every particle has one of those or a color derived from more than one color. Good or and bad odor are two types of smell and every particle has one of them.
But soul does not have any of those attributes. Body and soul are thus totally different substances. They have distinctly different characteristics. During the embodied state, however, the soul has to stay within some body and occupies the same space that the body occupies. They thus stay together during the life span. That concurrently occupying of the same space creates the illusion about identification. That illusory approach is termed as Adhyäs. Under the influence of that Adhyäs, the soul thinks itself as the body and treats the comforts and discomforts of the body as its own. If there is some injury to the body, the soul feels as if it is experiencing the pain. If the body needs food for recouping its energy, the soul feels as if it is hungry. Such Adhyäs leads to desires, and desire is the root cause of wandering from birth to birth. During that wandering it migrates from one body to another. But its Adhyas continues to stay and the soul tends to identify itself with the body that it gets from time to time. It is the purpose of religion to show that the soul is different from the body.
90