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THE JAINA THEORY OF MATTER 55 With the orthodox Mimansakas, the Vedas were the absolutely infallible authority. The Vedas however, consist in sound; hence, if sound were nothing more than an attribute of a substance, it seems that the Vedas cannot be looked upon as the eternal and the immutable authority. Accordingly, the thinkers of the Mimansa school enunciated the curious doctrine that Sound-in-itself or the Noumenal sound is a real substance. They contended that underlying the varied phenomenal sounds (Dhoanis, as they called them), there is the eternal and the unchangeable Noumenal sound (the Sphota), which is a substance.
Roughly speaking, according to the Nyaya and the Vaiseshika schools, sound is a quality while according to the Mimansakas, it is a substance. The Jaina theory of sound seems to be a mean between the two. The Jainas do not recognise Akasa as a material substance ; nor, do they look upon sound as a quality of Matter. They admit that sound, as we hear it, is carried to our ears as a vibration or an on-coming wave; but on this account, it need not be an attribute of a substance, Akasa. Sound is a mode of Matter ; it is Matter itself, modified in a certain way. Sound is heard when that peculiarly modified Matter,—Matter in vibration is carried to our ears.
But although the Jainas reject the Nyaya doctrine of Sound and seem to agree with the Mimansakas to some extent, they differ from the latter on very important points. First of all, the Jainas maintain that all sounds are non-eternal temporary phenomena ; on this point, they agree with the Naiyayikas and differ from the Mimansa philosophers, according to whom, there is a Noumenal sound which is eternal and unchanged. Secondly, although the Jainas admit that sound is substantial, their doctrine is that it is not Matter as it is in itself; it is only a mode of Pudgala, a peculiar modification of it—a passing phase.
Paryayas of Pudgala. Coming to the consideration of Matter in its modifications, - i.e., the aspect of its Paryayas, we find the author of the Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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