Outlines of Jaina Philosophy

Author(s): Mohanlal Mehta
Publisher: Jain Mission Society Bangalore

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OUTLINES OF JAINA PHILOSOPHY there are three methods of linking atoms. The linkage may be electrovalent, co-valent, or co-ordinate.
Molecules with an electrovalent linkage are ionised even in the solid state, X-ray analysis of the crystal indicating that the elementary particles making up the crystal lattice are ions and not atoms or molecules. Nearly all inorganic salts are electrovalent compounds.
The second arrangement, i.e., co-valent linkage is found in organic compounds. The atoms attain stability by a process of sharing electrons. For instance, in the case of the methane gas CH, the carbon atom attains a stable arrangement by sharing four electrons with the four electrons of the four hydrogen atoms.
The third type of linkage, the co-ordinate linkage, involves the sharing of two electrons but both are supplied by the same atom. The process of the formation of a co-ordinate linkage resembles both transference and sharing. Therefore, the three modern processes are transference, sharing, and combined transference and sharing.1 PERCEPTIBILITY OF MOLECULES
The Jaina thinkers maintain that not only atoms are imperceptible but that certain types of molecules are also imperceptible. As Pūjyapāda says: Out of molecules composed even of an infinite number of elementary particles (anus) some are visible and some invisible.'2 The question, therefore, is: How the invisible molecules become visible, i.e., what is the process by which the imperceptible molecules are perceived ? The answer is as under:
If a molecule breaks and the broken part then attaches itself. to another molecule, the resulting combination may be coarse enough to be perceived. The point is that the imperceptible molecule becomes perceptible by the combined process of division and union, i.e., dissociation and association. For instance, the molecules of hydrogen and chlorine gas are invisible to the eves but when each of them breaks and then combines to form two molecules of hydrochloric acid, the product becomes visible. Regarding other sense-perceptions, the same rule can be applied.
1 Cosmology: old and new, p. 183. 2 Sarvártha-siddhi, V, 28. 3 ibid.