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physical bodies of the living-beings, 2. Vaikriya vargasā special type of pudgala matter that is capable of transformation, 3. Ahā raka vargaņā, the matter type with which the accomplished spiritual practitioners form bodies with special powers, 4. Taijas varganā, the type of matter with which the subtle body electric field is formed that gives the body its glow, heat and power to digest, 5. Kārmaņa vargaņā, the highly subtle karma-matter that binds with the soul and becomes the cause of its worldly existence and transmigration, 6. Svāsocchavāsa vargaņā, the gaseous matter that is inhaled and exhaled by the living beings, 7. Bhāṣā vargaņā, the mode of matter that creates intelligible sounds, and 8. Manaḥ vargana, the type of matter that creates thoughts in the minds of the rational living beings.
All pudgala matter is made up of ultimate indivisible particles called 'Paramāņu', which combine to form various types of aggregates called “skandha? Here, it must be clearly understood that paramānu is the ultimate and indivisible finest part of matter · and it ought not to be confused with the currently employed scientific term “atom', which has been divided into finer particles long ago. The finest particle known to science, today, is 'quark? and it may not be the ultimate finest particle. Of course, the science is yet to cross many frontiers of discovery.
Two, three or more (including numerable, innumerable and infinite) number of ultimate particles form the aggregates. The ultimate particle is not perceptible by senses but the aggregates are and the manifest universe we see around us is in the form of aggregates (pudgala-skandha) of various shapes, sizes, colours, tastes, smells, and touches. According to their sizes the material aggregates are of six types – 1. Very fine, 2. Fine, 3. Fine-gross, 4. Gross-fine, 5. Gross and 6. Very gross. The Jaina thinkers also accept a relationship between matter and energy and consider energy as a mode of matter, the contention that has been borne out by Albert Einstein's discovery and the resultant equation
TATTVĀRTHA (THE FUNDAMENTALS) : 97
