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karma.
218 The Jainas took the position of parinamavada in a very early stage. In the Bhagavati 1.3.32, MV emphatically pronounces that astitva (state of existence) transforms into astitva alone, and nastitva (state of non-existence) does so into nastitva alone, due to prayoga and visrasa. This text may belong to the late third canonical stage. This goes against the Vaiseșika position that sat becomes asat upon the destruction of sat (the Vaiseṣikasutra, text of Candrananda, IX.2). According to the Jainas, a soul under the effect of karma undergoes constant transformations in samsara. The same being thus goes through the stages of childhood through old age, and is then born again and again in four gatis as long as he is not freed from karmic bondage. They postulate that the nature and size of all souls are uniformly the same, which are embodied differently in samsara due to the work of karma. (Siddhas are also encased in 2/3 of the size of their former bodies according to the Prajnapanā II.136, gatha 4, which is probably a later accretion.) The Jainas maintain that the soul is coextensive with the size of its body, and they favour explanation by the simile of a lamp light which adjusts itself to any spatial dimension.
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While going through this transformation in samsara, a soul must take a transit path to be born in its new body. According to the Jainas, a karmana sarira which resembles a sukṣma sarira of Sankhyas is the bearer of a soul's transmigration. Karma is the matter, and its size is, of course, larger than an atom. Supposing the standard theory of atomic combination by the mechanical interlinking of atoms is accepted in this context, a karmana 'sarira which consists of all types of karma matter accumulated in the previous life would become an enormously huge body, which makes a soul impossible to take its transit path. The theory of atomic combination received by the other systems of thought cannot be thus accepted by the Jainas.
The Jaina thoreticians had therefore to solve this problem so that an enormous number of karmic particles can be located in an extremely tiny space. Karmic bondage occurring in a soul's pradesas must operate in a similar way to the combination of atom-composites, as far as the point of the rise of dimension derived by it is concerned. This point is particularly pressing in the case where a soul has to take a transit path. So the theory of atomic combination ought to be formulated in such way that a number of atoms can interpenetrate in the minutest space, as a soul with karma can penetrate any sizes of body, small or big. The size of an atom, the minimum unit of matter, is here taken to express as the minimum unit of space. This invisible unit of space (a-pradesa) was then named pradesa (pra/dis, to manifest). Etymologically speaking, the term pradesa must have been primarily so named as the cause of perceptibility, however, an atom is necessarily invisible, and therefore it must have been called apradesa. This concept of pradesa enabled the Jaina atomists to formulate a
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