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A Critique
185
The ultimate atom is not of four kinds, as some people would have, such as earth, air, fire, and water, but it is the constitutive basis of these four mahābhūtas or dhātus, which are different modes of physical existence. The atom has its own essential nature which is quite distinct from that of these four mahābhūtas.
The very name paramāņu (paramatanu) implies the atomic structure and the division of pudgala (physical objects) which is characterized by the sense-qualities of touch, taste, smell and the colour, all the four being concomitant. Paramānu is the beginning, the middle and the end in one. From ihe general principle that substance and its quality are inseparable, it follows that the space-point (pradeśa) occupied by the paramāņu is also the space-point accommodating its sensory qualities. And hence, on the basis of our discussion in the fifth section of the second chapter regarding the indivisible units of pudgala, space, etc. it can be emphasized that the paramānu is the direct unit of pudgala and the indirect unit of space, time, and quality. The quantitative difference in these things and also the qualitative difference in various physical objects may ultimately be traced to the constitutive, that is, paramānu.
SCIENTIFIC VERSION
STRUCTURE OF MATTER -SUBATOMIC PARTICLES-QUARKS
Atoms of Democritus were all of the same substance but had different sizes and shapes. They were eternally unchanging (Parmenidian), impenetrable and indivisible. Atoms themselves had neither colour nor smell nor taste, the sensuousness of the material objects being produced by the motion and arrangement of atoms in space. "Sweet and bitter, cold and warm as well as all the colours, all these things exist but in opinion and not in reality, what really exists are unchangeable particles, atoms and their motions in empty space" wrote Democritus.
We now know that the object which were referred to as ‘atoms' historically and later during the revival of science in seventeenth century, are not indivisible units of matter. According
