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THEORY OF ATOM
The smallest such grain is a molecule of chalk. The point is that when any material body is repeatedly divided, a limit will be reached when further division will be impossible without losing the characteristic properties of that budy Therefore, the minutest grain of a body which retains the properties of that body is its molecule Thus, there is some similarity and some contrast in the respective defini⚫tions of a molecule by Jainology and modern science. In Jainology an entity of material body is called a 'SKANDHA' eg a jar, a mat, a table, a pen, a book etc If the jar is broken into two pieces, the result is two 'skandhas' and hundred pieces are hundred skandhas If a piece of chalk is divided into two, we have two 'skandhas' and if into a thousand we have a thousand 'skandhas'. If it is ground to dust each grain of that dust is a 'skandha. According to science, the molecule is that minute part of grain which if further divided would lose all the properties of chalk and would be transformed into something altogether different. According to Jamology the molecult of Science is, of course, a 'skandha' but when further divided, it continues to be a 'skandha' (and all the other fragments too are skandhas) irrespective of its transformation from chalk, until each division results in 'paramanu'
Formation of Material Bodies
A few simple rules which govern the union of 'paramanus into 'skandhas' of material bodies are
