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The Philosophical Teaching of Lord Mahåvira
201 In this stage sight may perceive its colour; its quality may be tasted; it may be touched; it may be smelt. Matter is composed of atoms (paramânus) varying from the smallest molecule of two to an infinite number forming whole physical universes (mahâskandha), where, of course, it is obvious that neither the smallest atom of all, nor the largest conglomeration, can be held within the perception or reach of the senses of man.
Sub-dividing again, Mahâvîra advances a new and original thesis, for he posits two kinds of this static matter: the aforesaid grossest (pudgala), and a less gross matter, which retains impressions.
This new kind of matter is called Karmaprayoga-pudgala, and is associated with the old law of karma, a word now familiar to the Western world, to scholars and laymen alike, though, it has, hitherto, been used so loosely as to arouse a great deal of suspicion in the mind of scholars.
Gross matter (pudgala), reinforced by other matter of its kind, or diminished by contact with it, is the basic medium of bodies.
It is subject to change: its forms are subject to decay and death: and life uses them and discards them at death. No real affinity is ever formed between this matter and life.
But the other karmic matter// is in itself a by-product of life: for, it says, that it is the psychical activities of life, or soul, which bring about the condition of this matter, and the matter, once brought into existence, persists in the vicious circle of cause and effect: i.e., the emotions and desires of life, that has already formed an association with matter for their expression, have, in their very expression, formed an effect, which, in its turn, will produce another cause with yet another effect, and so on, ad infinitum.
But, if once we free ourselves from the word soul as understood in the Upanishadic sense, keeping it strictly to its use as evolving life, we come back to philosophic reasoning thus: life takes for itself matter for expression, or, more correctly to philosophical Jain thesis, matter flows (âsrava) into life; and this conjunction of life and matter has a definite effect on both.
The intrinsic qualities of life are lessened in the degree that they have been translated to matter; this effects the postulation of life in its completeness, and checks its evolution. Matter, it would appear, has no evolution?: it is a fixed and definite thing: life with
