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COMPENDIUM OF JAINISM
The Jaina view is that there are infinite number of souls in the Universe. Matter or Pudgala possesses indefiniteness both in quality and quantity. Aņu or atom which modern science has discovered was known to the Jaina thinkers; the atoms give rise to an infinite variety of material objects. The atoins are both diverse and infinite. Akāśa has also innumerable space-points or Pradeśas. Kāla or time has also an infinity of instrinsically real units called Kālaņus or time-atoms which from the basis of the conventionally temporal distinctions like the minute, the hour, the day, the year and so on. There are innumerable points of space in the medium of motion (Dharma) and the medium of stationariness (Adharma) as in each individual soul.7 The media of motion and rest assist in facilitating motion and rest. The two pervade the entire universe in the manner of oil in the sesamum seeds. The two interpenetrate without any obstruction as they are non-material like the space. In terms of modern science, they possess the characteristics of ether which is assumed to fill all space and transmit all electro-magnetic waves. It therefore follows that according to Jaina philosophy all substances constitute reality and possess manyness or pluralism.
It would be seen that a single substance is endowed with infinite modifications, and there are infinite classes of substance; to know one substance fully is to know the whole range of the object of knowledge; and this is possible only in omniscience. A substance is endowed with qualities (or attributes) and modifi
ns; though the substance is the same, it comes to be different because of its passing through different modifications; so when something is to be stated above a substance, viewed through a flux of modifications, there would be seven modes of predication.
Thus it is clear that our universe is complex and comprises infinite realities. To have simultaneous view of the totality of the infinite ad infinitum, with all its subjective and objective characteristics, with all its chequered aspects of dialectical opposites, such as 'T' and 'not l' one and many, similar and dissimilar, eternal and ephemeral, determinate and indeterminate, prior and
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