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THE JAINA THEORY OF MATTER
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tatively but also qualitatively. This means that all the varieties of touch [except the touches of heaviness, lightness, softness and hardness which are to be found exclusively in 'compounds and obviously not in the primary atoms], two kinds of smell, five modes of taste and five kinds of colour are implicit in each and every Atom. Every atom is capable of producing any colour, any taste, any smell and any touch. What, then, is meant when the Paramanu is said to be of only one single taste, colour etc? We think, here the nature of the Paramanu is considered with reference to its corresponding gross material mass. A Skandha or a moleculer mass, as every one knows, can have only one taste; it cannot have all the five tastes at one and the same time. So, as regards smell, it is either agreeable or disagreeable, it cannot be both. Similarly, with regard to colour, it is either red or yellow etc. and cannot be of more than one colour at one and the same time. And lastly, as regards touch, a material gross thing can have two i.e., a pair of compatible touches at one time e.g. heat and roughness' cold and smoothness, and not all the eight forms at once. It seems that when the Atom is said to be of one taste etc. etc. all that is meant is that so far and so long you consider the characteristics of a particular Skandha, you must attribute the same qualities to its constituent Atoms. Thereby, however, the capacity of an atom to develop different characteristics in different Skandhas is by no means denied. When we have a particular Skandha manifesting particular characteristics, we are to attribute only those particular characteristics to its constituent Para manus; this does not mean that those Paramaus can on no account evolve different characteristics. While commenting on the doctrine that a Paramanu has a single taste, colour, etc. etc. Professor Chakravarti says, This description would naturally introduce qualitative difference among atoms and yet according to the author, there can be no qualitative difference among atoms as they are identical material units." He stops abruptly, creating an impression that we are here face to face with a contradiction in the Jaina theony, a riddle which it is impossible to explain. The Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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