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The Jaina world of Non-living
(b) The living element persists throughout the size of its embodiment in the current birth. It is due to this that one feels pain and pleasure throughout.
(c) This aphorism refers to single soul. With respect to all living beings, they occupy all the cosmic space.
4. It is very difficult to express the element of soul in terms of scientific elements. The most scientific equivalent having a property of the living-knowledge, conation, growth, death etc. - may be taken as the protoplasmic cell. The living beings in world vary with respect to the number of such cells- unicellular amoebae to trillion-cellular men. Each cell must have living elements which are co-existing with body supporting the all-body persistence of soul. Of course, the pure soul is non-mattergic for Jainas while the worldly soul is fine-karmically associated and, thus, mattergic. This association is also a possible cause of variability of size.
5.
It is now postulated that the soul may be a form of non-mattergic energy enabling the life-functions to take place. A large number of properties of the living ones can be explained on this basis without taking recourse to scriptural sanctions. However, some unexplained facts still remain.
It is said that the single living being occupies a single spacepoint equal to the occupied space. How this could occupy innumerable spacepoints? It seems that the living one must pervade all the universe. The aphorism 5.16 intends to respond to this issue.
Pradesa-sanhāra-visarpābhyām Pradipvat
5.16
The living being occupies the numerable and innumerable etc. spacepoints of universe-space due to its contraction and expansion capacity like a lamp. 5.16.
1. Though the normal soul is non-mattergic, however, it bears somehow a mattergic nature due to its beginningless association with karmic body. Though its spacepoints are equal to that of universe-space, nevertheless, it has a fine body due to karmic bodies. This fine body
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