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Jaina Conception of Matter
Matter in the form of paramāņu (ultimate atom) cannot be attracted by Soul nor can it be received in all kinds of molecular conditions. Thus Matter, being transformed into the forms of body, speech, mind and respiration, comes in the service of Soul.1
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Similarly, the function of Matter is also to contribute to pleasure, suffering, life and death of living beings.2 That is to say, forms of Matter render a service to the worldly souls by four means of upagraha (contributions), viz. pleasure, pain, life and death, having undergone transformation as body, speech, mind and respiration. "Owing to the presence of the internal causes of karma, which produce the feelings of delight and anguish, and in consequence of the ripening of external causes; such as objects, the disposition of agreeableness or affliction is pleasure or pain. The continuance of respiration in a being owing to the presence of the age-determining karma is called living (or life). The cutting off or destruction of respiration is death. Matter renders help to Soul in these respects, for these arise in the presence of material causes." All these modes like pleasure, pain, etc. in Soul are produced by Matter as material functions towards it. Souls and forms of matter exist in the Universe as being mutually bound, touched, immersed and tied to each other by attraction and getting mixed up like a jar and water or a sunken boat and water in a lake4 intermingled with each other like milk and water.5 Of the general qualities of Matter, as conceived in the Nyaya-Vaiśeṣika system of thought impenetrability, perceptibility and mass of it (kaya) are essential aspects of its nature. Besides, it possesses colour, taste, smell, touch, priority, posteriority weight, fluidity, viscosity and impulse as the murtagunas (finite or subjective concrete
or
1. Sarvarthasiddhi, pp. 285-8.
2. Sukhaduḥkhajfvitamaraṇopagrahāśca-TS., V. 20, p 343.. 3. Sarvarthasiddhi, pp. 288-9.
4. Bhs., 1. 6. 56.
5. Sanmatitarka, I. V. 47.
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