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46
Letter 7
every part of the substance and in all the manifestations of the substance is called attribute. Each and every attribute of the substance occupies the total area of that entire substance.
Each attribute of the substance occupies the same area as the area of substance itself. e.g. if you take gold as the substance then its attributes like yellowness, luster, heaviness are in the entire gold piece. Similarly in the sugar cube the attribute of sweetness is spread all over or present in the sugar cube as a whole. Similarly its attributes of whiteness and hardness are present all over the cube in each and every part.
Soul has innumerable space points i.e. Asankhyat Pradesh. Its attribute of sentience is also in innumerable space points, its attributes of Bliss and Astitva (af) are also in the innumerable space points. Usually we think that knowledge is in our head or brain and bliss is in the heart. But in fact it is not so.
The infinite attributes existing in one space or area are collectively called a substance. It is not as if some sort of outer covering is put on these attributes. Nor it is like wheat or rice grains packed in a bag. Substance is a mass i.e. Pind or Punj (fч-) of attributes. They are inseparable.
Just as it is said that fire has attributes of heat, light, burning etc.; but in fact this mass of all the qualities of heat, light, burning etc. itself is fire. Fire is not something different which possesses them. It does not have one part consisting heat and other made of light etc.
In fact attributes and substances are not two different things. They are one and the same thing. A mass of infinite attributes is called substance. It consists of infinite attributes. That is why it is also called Guni quit.
Now you may wonder that if they are not two separate different things why were they given two different names? Why are the infinite attributes of the substance described? Why don't we just give them the names of the substances?
But since the six different substances have different names namely Jeev, Pudgal, Dharma, Adharma, Akash and Kaal, each of them must have some speciality of its own. Otherwise there would not have been such a division or classification. These specialities are the attributes. They are also known as Shakti शक्ति, Dharma धर्म, Aant अंत or Artha अर्थ or Bhava भाव.
So far we have seen only partial definition of the attribute. That is attributes exist in the whole, rather in all the parts of the substance. But this is not the complete description because they are existing in all the
