________________
98
PROLEGOMENA TO PRAKRITICA et JAINICA
no opening in the iron through which the fire could have entered, and in the same manner the soul of the dead man had gone out and the souls of the worms had entered the iron vessel unperceived by the senses.
Payesi then argued that the decay of the body in old age showed there was no permanent underlying jīva, to which it was said in reply that the body was merely the material which was liable to decay without effecting any changes or decay in the underlying energy of the jiva. He then argued that he once killed a robber weighing him immediately before and after his death and found no difference between the two weights. If the robber had a soul different from the body there would certainly have been some difference in his weight before and after the soul left the body. Again he argued that he cut into many pieces a robber, looked very closely into it for a soul but found it nowhere. Kesi replied that the weight and form of the soul were not perceptible by the ordinary organs of sense.
V. NĀSTIKA-VĀDA The philosophy of the Nāstikas or those who deny the existence of the soul was well-known to the Jainas. There is a reference to those who ignore and deny the tenets of the Nirgranthas,75 which Śīlānka understands as an allusion to the Buddhists and the followers of Bphaspati, the latter being a well-known school of Nāstikas.
A more precise reference speaks of those that profess exclusive belief in the five gross elements, viz., earth, water, fire, air and sky. These five are all that exist and there is nothing in addition to these.78 This ultramaterialistic view is in line with Cārvāka's famous doctrine of the non-existence of the soul or God or a life
75. Sut.S. I.i.1.6 76. Sat.S. I.i.1.7.
