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THE JAINA GAZETTE in order that an atom may unite with another, there should be a difference of two degrees of smoothness or roughness between them. It is difficult indeed to correctly understand the implications of these doctrines of the author of the Talluartha-sutram. One thing, however, is certain, that he did not intend the terms, Snigdha and Ruksha 1o be taken in their literal sense. We have tried to show how the Para. manu or the ultimate stuff of matter was conceived by the Indian philosophers, not as hard and impenetrable material particles, but rather as mathematical centres, almost immaterial, so to say. The attributes, Smoothness and Roughness, as ordinarily, understood, can belong only to a material mass or massive matter; they cannot apparently mean any. thing, when applied to non-spatial space-points, as the Paramanus are. We are accordingly tempted to think that the attributes ; *Smoothness' and 'Roughness', when applied to the ultimute atoms, can only mean a peculiar capacity and a responsive reciprocity in them to combine with one another.
There is another point regarding the Paramanu which we want to notice very briefly before we finish our consideration of the nature of an Atom. Pudgala has been described by the Jainas as characterised by touch, taste, smell and colour. The Paramanu, as the ultimate stuff of Pudgala must accordingly be thought of as a potentiality which makes those sensuous phenomena explicit in the Skandha or material mass. Now, touch has been said to be of eight kinds, taste, of five, smell, of two and colour, of five varieties. The Jaina philosophers, however maintain that an Atom has a single taste, colour and smell and two contacts. Are we then to suppose that Atoms are of different kinds, rather of different stuffs,—30 that some are red-colour-atoms, some blue-colour-atoms, some yellowcolour-atoms, some cold-touch-atoms, some rough-touchatoms, some acid-taste atoms, some sweet-taste-atoms, some fragrant-smell-atoms, some loathsome-smell-atoms and so on? We think, the fundamental doctrine of the Paramanu, as onunciated by the Jainas would not permit the recognition of any such qualitative differences in the Atoms. Atoms in them
selves, are all strictly similar to eacb other, not only quantiShree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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