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270
Pokharna
formed. In general any number of paramāņus can combine to form a skandha. Ultimately an infinite numer of paramāņus can combine. Several classes of skandhas have been described in the scriptures. Avasannasannā skandha is just one of the skandha formed by an infinite number of parmaņus. This has been treated as the smallest particle of matter for all practical purposes. Let us therefore estimate its size. The tabel shows that the average width of ordinary finger is related with the size of the avasannāsannā skandha by the following relation.
812 ( Size of avasannāsannā skandha ) = Average widih of a finger.
For simplicity, let us take the average width of a finger to be around 2cm.! ith this assumption, the size of the avasannāsannā turns out to be 2 x 8-12 cm. or 2.9 x 10-11 cm. This value lies in between the size of the ordinary atom, which is of the order of 10-8 cm, and the average size of an ordinary nucleus, which is of the order of 10°13 cm.
We cannot make this comparison very precise because there are a large number of uncertainties. Thus we cannot say whether avasapnāsannā skandha of the Jainas corresponds to an atom or a nucleus. This is so because conceptually there is not much similarity in these two descriptions except for the fact that the avasannāsannā skandha is treatud as the smallest particle of matter, and atoms (not now of course ) and nuclei are also considered as the
t particles of matter in the modern physics. Hence they all occupy some part of the space. Another hurdle in making this comparison more exact is that we do not know much about the various physical objects used by the ancient Jainas in framing this table. ( Hence we cannot check their sizes. )
This comparison of the sizes is therefore definitely very crude but even this rough agreement cannot be left unnoticed in view of (i) the problems encountered while measuring ( or even guessing ) the sizes of the smallest particles of matter, (ii) the fact that this work of Jainas is about 2000 years old and lastly (iii) the fact that this result has been arrived at by an entirely different procedure viz. extra sensory perception.
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