Jain Journal 1998 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 33

SOGANI: THE CONCEPTION OF DRAVYAS IN JAINA PHILOSOPHY
for the disruption of skhandhas by virtue of its segregation from them, is also the substantial cause of them and is the measure of time.64 Again it is devoid of sound, but is the cause of sound i.e., the combination of atoms may produce sound when they strike against other aggregates of atoms.65 It possesses any one colour, any one taste, any one smell, but a pair of such touches as are not of cotradictory nature, namely, cold and viscous, or cold and dry, or hot and viscous or hot and dry.66 The remaining touches, namely, soft and hard, light and heavy are only manifested in the skhandha state of matter, and thus are not present in its atomic state. The qualities of viscousness (snigdhata) and dryness (rūkṣatā) vary in degrees of intensity extending from the lowest limit to the highest, from one point to infinity.67 The variation in the degrees of intensity may be ordinarily witnessed in the milk of she-goat, cow, buffalo, and she-camel in point of viscousness, and in dust (pāmsu), gross-sand (kanikā), and sand (sarkarā) in respect of dryness. 68 Hence atoms are capable of existing with infinite variability in these two characteristics. These are responsible for atomic linking.69 Thus, for explaining the combination of atoms this assumption excludes God or Adraṣṭa as recognised by the Nyāya-Vaiseṣika school of thought, as also the primordial motion of atoms as advocated by Democritus. Though, according to the Jaina, atom is active,70 activity is not the cause of combination. It will not be amiss to say that those atoms which are at the lowest in the scale of viscousness and dryness are not given in combination either with one another or with other intensifications." But atoms which hold two degrees of viscousness and dryness in excess are given to interlinking; i.e. atoms which hold two degrees of viscousness and dryness are interlinkable with four degrees of the same in all respects. Similarly, this law holds good for other interlinkings.73 Besides, the atoms which possess four degrees of viscousness or dryness are capable of transforming atoms having two degrees of viscousness or dryness into their own nature.74 Similarly, this holds good for all those atoms which have a difference of two degrees of viscousness or dryness. This theory
64. Panca. 80.
65. Panca. 78, 79; 81.
66. Ibid. 81., Niyama, 27. comm. Amtata.
67. Sarvartha V 33,
68. Ibid. 33.
69. Gomm. Ji 608,
70, Panca. comm. Amrta. 98.
71. Sarvartha V. 34.
72. Ibid. V. 35.
73. Ibid. V. 36. 74. Ibid. V 37.
123