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INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
5 Divisions of akāša
Akāśa is ananta (infinite) in extension. That portion of it, which contains all substances is called Lokākāśa (Universe-space) and that portion of ākāśa, which has no substance to accommodate in itself is called Alokākāśa (Space-beyond-the-Universe). Akāśa is one only. Lokākāśa and Alokākāśa are not two individual ākāśas. Thus this division is not in ākāśa itself but it is due to its relation with other substances.25
6. Lokākāśa
Lokākāśa has asamkhyāta (innumerable) space-points.26 This number is fixed. That is, there is no possibility of increase or decrease of the space-points of lokākāśa. Though lokākāśa has asarnkhyāta spacepoints, it accommodates ananta material atoms. The number ananta is infinite times greater than the number asamkhyāta. So there arises a question as to how the space of asamkhyāta space-points can accommodate ananta material atoms. The answer to this question is there in the Jaina belief that, under certain conditions, one spacepoint can accommodate more than one material atoms.27
There is no possibility of expansion of lokākāśa (universe-space). There are two reasons for this. First, the lokākāśa has fixed number of spacepoints and these spacepoints cannot expand or contract. Secondly, lokākāśa can expand provided loka (universe) expands, and loka can expand provided the bodies get exploded and thrown into ākāśa which was till then empty; but this possibility has no room in Jainism because according to this system the medium of motion is necessary for bodies to move from one place to another, and this medium of motion is not present in empty space, it is confined to the universe only. So no body crosses the limits of universe set up by the medium of motion. Thus universe is not expanding and hence universe-space is also not expanding.
One may pose here another question – 'Does the universe as a whole move in the empty space with the result that though universespace is fixed in its extension this universe-space is not the same for ever ?' He may further ask that as dharma (medium of motion) and adharma (medium of rest) pervade the universe they cannot move in the Universe, nor do they as individuals peel themselves off the universe into the non-universe because they constitute the nature of
