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156
Reals in the Jaina Metaphysics
ATOMS HAVE NO QUALITATIVE OR QUANTITATIVE DIFFERENCE IN THEM
There is another point regarding the Paramāņu which we want to notice very briefly before we finish our consideration of the nature of an atom. Pudgala has been described by the Jaina's as characterised by touch, taste, smell and colour. The Paramāņu as the ultimate stuff of the Pudgala must accordingly be thought of as a potentiality which makes those sensuous phenomena explicit in the Skandha, a material mass. Now, touch has been said to be of eight kinds, taste, of five, smell, of two and colour, of five varieties. Of the eight kinds of touch smooth and rough, heavy and light are obviously met only in the gross bodies and cannot be associated with atoms. The Jaina philosophers, however, maintain that one atom has a simple taste. colour and smell and only a pair of compatible touches. Are we then to suppose that atoms are of different kinds, rather of different stuffs, so that some are red colour atoms, some blue colour atoms, some cold touch atoms, some hot touch atoms, some acid taste atoms, some sweet taste atoms, some fragrant smell atoms, some loathsome smell atoms and so on? We think, the fundamental doctrine of the Paramāņu, as enunciated by the Jaina's would not permit the recognition of any such qualitative differences in the atoms. Atoms in themselves are all strictly similar to each other, not only quantitatively but also qualitatively. This means that all the varieties of touch, two kinds of smell, five modes of
Cognition, Joy and Power are inherent in every soul, the four attributes of Colour, Taste, Smell and Touch are inherent in every matter. In a pure soul, unaffected by matter, the four aforesaid psychical characteristics are Atindriya i.e. independent of the sense-operations. In the same way, in pure atomic matter, the four material attributes are Atindriya i.e. lie as implicit capacities, In a soul which is in bondage to Karma on account of Räga or Dveşa i.e. attachment and envy, the psychical attributes of knowledge etc. become impure i.e, blurred and limited. In the same way, when the atoms because of the operations of the forces of Snigdha and Rūkņa undergo combinations into dyads etc. their attributes of colour etc. become impure i.e. become of the nature of the attributes of gross sensuous things. The implications of the above almost classical utterances of the commentator of Dravya-Samgraha are unmistakable.
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