Mysteries of Life and Eternal Bliss

Author(s): Anantprasad Jain
Publisher: Tirthakar Mahavir Smruti Kendra Samiti Lakhnou UP

Page 44

The single Pudgala Pradesha, remaing the same always in expanse, does neither contract nor expand and has been defined as the unit of space in Jain scriptures,
The Atman Pradesha contracts and expands with the contraction and expansion of the material body in which it is entangled and encased. When an old body comes to an end by the worldly death and a new body (in any form or shape) is taken on again by worldly birth or rebirth, the shape, size and form of the soul also transforms to the same expanse. In the body of the elementary embryo the soul remains equal to the size of that very small body and develops to bigger size along with the development of the embryo to childhood at the time of birth. In the body of a child the soul is of the size of the body of the child and when the child grows up to boyhood, youth and manhood the soul also develops to the same expanse as the respective bodies. In the body of a minute microbe, a worm, a bird, a beast or any living being whether belonging to the vegetable kingdom of non-moving type and all other of the moving type, it is fully and wholly contained in the respective bodies,