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Letter 11 Vastutva Attribute Letter 11
October 29, 1994. Dear Reena & Mona,
Blessings and Best Wishes. Its over an year now that we are studying Jainism through these letters. I am very pleased to know that along with us many other are also taking advantage of this as well.
These days it is many a times seen that by and large people feel that the books and magazines which deal in religious philosophy are meant only for the old people in the house, and others are not at all concerned with them. But on the contrary, in the last ten letters, we have seen that these scriptures show each one of us the path of salvation which is beneficial to everybody.
In our previous letter we had seen the nature of Astitva or Existence attribute of the substance. The existence of each substance is eternal. A substance is neither newly evolved nor does it get extinguished. This Sat He is inclusive of evolution, extinction and constancy. At each samay a new modification is evolved and the former one is extinguished. This .modification (changes) of the substance is called as its work or activity.
This activity within the substance goes on because of the intrinsic energy of the substance. This energy is called as Vastutva attribute or the attribute of functionality. We will discuss about this Vastutva attribute today.
What is Vastutva attribute? The energy that causes the Anthakriyakaritva aparutalfira within the substance is called Vastutva or the energy causing specific activity i.e. the activity which is basic to the characteristics of the substance i.e. Prayojanbhoot Kriya (uta fa541) is called Vastutva attribute.
In the above definition the word Artha Kriya Karitva is very important. Artha means the substance. Artha Kriya means the activity of the substance, which is the modification and Karitva means the energy which helps this activity to happen. And the Artha Kriya Karitva or the intrinsic nature of the substance to have this activity or modification in it is because of this Vastutva attribute.
Each substance has the potentiality to perform its own activity. That is known as Vastutva attribute. Because of this Vastutva attribute the