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THE JAINA THEORY OF MATTER 53 any material element, viz., Akasa, having sound as its distinctive quality. Accordingly, the Jainas do not admit the reality of Akasa as a material substance.
It is to be noted, however, that although Akasa is no Pudgala or material Element according to the Jainas they admit the reality of Akasa as a non-psychical substance. It is characterised by the quality of giving space to all spatial things. “The attribute of Akasa," says the author of the Tattvarthadhigama-Sutra, " is to give room to all subtances.'. It is space which is one pervading substance. It seems that the Vedanta, although it attributes Sound to Akasa, mis inclined to admit the Jaina theory of Akasa. In the fiftyfourth stanza of the Second Chapter of Panchadasi, its author distinctly says, “Akasa is the first modification of Maya and is characterised by Avakasa." Avakasa is emptiness in which things are contained or rather, which makes the spatial existence of things possible. The philosophers of the Sankhya school also maintain that the characteristic of Akasa is that things are contained in it. In 2-1-20 of the Vaiseshika-sutras, Kanada criticises this Sankhya doctrine; but he admits that Akasa, although it is a material Element, having sound as its attribute, is not atomic. It is according to him also, one and an all-pervasive substance. One man is happy but another is unhappy at the very same moment ; this leads us to admit the multiplicity of souls ; but in the case of Akasa, we have the quality of sound in every part of it ; this is how Kanada establishes the one-ness of Akasa.
Pudgala is thus Matter of which things having forms or shapes are made. According to the Jainas, the bodies, speech, mind, acts of inhalation and exhalation,-all these are due to Pudgala, being attached to the Jiva. It is Matter sticking to a soul which accounts for the latter's births and re-births in the Samsara. It follows that pleasures and pains, experienced by a soul in the world, its very life and death here are all due to its attachment to Pudgala which is so foreign to its eggence.
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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