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Reals in the Jaina Metaphysics The non-Indian thinkers with the power of analysis that was then at their command saw that all the gross material objects of their experience were either the four substances of earth, air, water and fire or their combinations or transformations. Accordingly they arrived at the conclusion that these were the ultimate and primary elements. The Chinese saw that wood and metalic objects could not be accounted. for by earth, water, etc. and therefore they admitted the elementality of wood and metal too. By confining their attention to the ingredients that made up the gross material objects of experience, the early Greeks took up a scientific stand and in a manner prepared the way for the present day science of chemistry. Later researches have no doubt shown that what they thought to be elements were really compounds which were constituted of simpler substances; but the aim of the present day chemistry is still the same as that of the ancient Greeks viz: to find out the elementary substances that combine to make a gross body. The Indian mode of starting, however, was different. The Indians also began with the gross objects of experience. They saw that these objects were objects of four or five modes of sensuous experience, visual, tactual, olfactory, tasting and auditory, in accordance with the sense-organs of the eye, the ear etc. The gross material objects of sense-experience have the qualities of touch, taste, colour, smell and sound. It was taken for granted that the gross material objects of sensuous experience were made up of simple substances. It seems to us that the problem with the ancient Indian was not so much to find out the elements as to determine what should be the nature of those elements in order that they may be competent to explain the gross material objects, as we have them in our sensuous experience. The Pșthvī of the Indians as an elemental substance is not a bit of earth, as earth was. with the ancient non-Indian thinkers; it is said to have the attribute of Smell. Similarly, the Ap of the Indians is not a quantity of gross matter, it is what accounts for the Rasa or Taste. In the same way, Tejas is not fire but is what lies at the root of our sensations of Colour. Marut
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