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276 JAINA THEORIES OF REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE differentiations. The transmutation of elements is quite possible in this view and is not a mere dream of the alchemist." The material world evolves from the diversification of these homogeneous atoms into aggregates of earth, water, fire and air. It is pointed out that "Jainism also, like Upanișads, does not stop in the analysis of the physical universe at the elements of prthvī, etc. It pushes it farther back where qualitative differentiation has not yet taken place. But while in the latter the ultimate stage is represented by the monistic principle of Brahman, here it is taken by an infinity of atoms." Indicating that the character of indefiniteness or indeterminateness is extended to the sphere of quality also the same writer further observes : "It is not qualitatively only that matter is indefinite. Quantitatively also it is regarded as undetermined. It may increase or decrease in volume without addition or loss."* A further treatment of the notion of manifoldness of matter has been offered in the chapter on Relations, in connection with the problem whether an atom has, and if so in what sense it has, an infinite part (amśa), despite the fact it is impartite (niravayava) in its nature. In the course of the treatment of the problem we have met with an occasion to discuss the light which is shed on it by three thinkers, viz., Prabhācandra and McTaggart on the one hand and Abhayadeva
1. OIP, p. 212 f. 2. Ibid. The phrase "an infinity of atoms' may be substituted,
without being incorrect, an infinity of diversified atoms'. 3. Ibid. Cf. the following fragment of Empedocles in Greek
philosophy: "Earth increases its own mass and Air swells the bulk of Air.” Burnet's Early Greek Philosophy, the edn. Adam & Charles Black, London, 1952, p. 212.
