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Letter 12
77 in them. Right from the 1st modification upto the 100th modification the time consumed is one second. The following example will make it more clear.
A newly born baby's body is constantly growing and changing at every samay and when the baby is one year old it has attained a particular stage of development. The child has grown physically. To examine the development that has taken place, we see the child's height, weight, mental and physical growth as well. But the progress of development of different children varies, both mentally and physically.
Therefore, to indicate, how many times the changes or modifications took place since birth, we consider the time factor. So in order to understand how many modifications must have taken place to reach this growth level, we measure it with reference to the modifications of Kaal Dravya or the number of samayas that elapsed in between the time of birth and today's position.
This shows that the Kaal Dravya has not contributed to the actual modification ( growth ) taking place in the Pudgal substances which is the body of the child here.
But the Pudgal substances i.e. the body and the Kaal Dravya are two different substances and they are the Karta ( doers) of their own modifications.
During the examination, a student sits for three hours and Writes the answer paper. Now tell me who performs the action of writing ? The student ? or the time period of three hours ?
A patient, who had burnt his hand asked me, " Doctor, when will this wound heal ?" After examining the nature of the wound, I told him " it will take a week to heal". And accordingly he got cured ! Due to the body's intrinsic power to heal the wound healed." This intrinsic power is called Dravyatva attribute.
The power of healing the wound was within him and this process of healing was going on at each and every samay. And with each passing samay one after another, in a matter of eight days the healthy stage of his body evolved. This stage of healing is of the body, happening in the body and because of the specific attributes present in the body.
To measure the total number of modifications that have taken place before achieving this state of healing we count the modifications of the Kaal Dravya during that period and say that it took eight days.
The most important thing to note there is that the Kaal Dravya performed its own modifications. It did not interfere into the activity or the modifications of the body. Yet we conventionally say that the wound healed due to the passage of time.