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Pudgal is tangible. All other substances are intangible, devoid of odour, colour and taste. They cannot be known through the senses. Jiv and Pudgal are active. The rest of the four substances are inactive, Dharma, Adharma, Aakash and Kaal are respectively connected with 'gati' (motion), position, avagahan (inception or space occupation), and transformation. In Jain scriptures, their usage does not connote the present day meaning. Whatever is visible with form, colour, taste, smell and touch - that is all Pudgal. When its contact is broken with the live soul, its acetana (non-conscious) and Pudgal Tattvas are discernable.
Hence, for identifying Jiv (soul) different from body, Mahavir has postulated the essential condition of rational perception. Being sentient, the Jiv substance is joyous or sorrowful. Other substances are having no grasping power; they do not feel happy or unhappy. That is why the central core of Mahavir's thought is Jiv or soul. He has mentioned other substances, as obiter dicta, to reveal their distinctness from the soul.
THE GAME OF KARMAS Atma (soul) assumes re-birth, heaven, hell, human body, animal body et cetera as per karma. But to be entrapped into the net of Karma, not to be entangled or after being entrapped, to come out by cutting it, is in the hands of the soul. So, whatever be the movement of Karma, it does not stand against purushartha (industrious perseverance). Soul is its own regulator - other than it or outside it, nobody is its controller. Mahavir does not believe in the regulatory powers of any Creator, His grace or displeasure or the loss and profit of birth or race. Yet, we cannot escape from the fact that so long as the soul remains in the net of Karma, until such time, the net is its controller.
Acarya Joindu, in his masterly work on the soul - Paramappapayasu (Paramatmaprakasha, doha 66) says that the soul is like a handicapped person. It does not go anywhere. It is the karmas that carry it from place to place.
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