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between death and birth of the one and the same jiva is known by the name of Vigraha Kala in Sanscrit or Våte vahatå in Guzrati. This vigruha kala is so infinitesimally small that it can not easily be measured, the longest being the time one takes to count from one to four. From this it becomes further evident, and it is really held by the Jains, that it is not the parental soul that is born as a child ; for were it so, then the parent, remark the Jain philosophers, should have died the moment the jiva was conceived in the womb through the act of coition : nor again the newly conceived jivı can be taken as a part of the parental soul for that would imply an actual division of the soul which is constitutionally indivisible by its very nature. The Jains hold, therefore, that the jiva that is born to the parent, is not the parental soul which remained hidden as it were, either in the constitution of the father, only to be instilled by him into the womb of its mother in and through the seminal fluid at the time of impregnation, or in the constitution of the mother, in her ovum
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