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(2) Living Substance, Jiva or Soul :- The soul is the reality that possesses the faculty of knowing and perceiving, in which the sensations of pain and pleasure inhere and through which the volition functions. Modern experimental psycology has already discovered the electrical counterpart of the soul called the Taijas Sharira. This soul has the potency of changing its size by contraction and expansion. It can occupy the smallest possible body of a bacteriophage or the biggest body of a whale fish. Since a body grows from a microscopical size in the mother's womb to its full proportions and contracts again at the end of its earthly career, to reincarnate into a new seed, it follows that the size of the soul cannot remain fixed. Modern science identifies life with protoplasm or the living cell and it is well known that it possesses a remarkable property of contraction under external stimulii. The theory of transmigration of soul is an extraordinary conception also supported by Hindu and Budhist philosophies. According to Jain view, all actions of embodied living beings, whether mental or physical, are followed by influx of fine molecules of energy towards the soul--the former constitutes a fine material body around the soul. It is technically called Karmanā Sarira. To use the modern language, the activities of mind and matter constitute a super radio with the quantillions of living cells sending out their individual waves to be tuned in by quantillions of receiving sets in the brain. Influx of these waves is the influx of subtle karmic matter, which we can call the fourth state of matter, the other three being solid, liquid and gaseous states. Activity of a good kind attracts meritorious while activity of a bad kind attracts the opposite kind of karmic matter. The karmic body is responsible for dragging the soul from one physical body to another, and it keeps the soul bound to the confines of the universe owing to the gravitational forces operating on all sides. When karmic matter is shed off the soul by following the path of liberation, being the ligh test substance, the latter rises to the top of the universe and rests there as pure "Effulgence Devine". It cannot travel further on owing to the absence of the medium of motion called the luminiferous Aether by the scientists.
In recent years, the scientists are trying to explain the processes of life, i. e., growth and reproduction in terms of special properties of various kinds of proteins and the two nucleic acids-DNA and RNA. Although the artificial synthesis of a biologically active living cell, which automatically grows by multiplication has been reported, it has not been possible so far to correlate the proteins, DNA and RNA with functions of memory, thought, reason, logic, intution and free will. In other words, consciousness could not be explained on the basis of physics and chemistry and hence the existence of soul remains unchallenged. Its existence and transmigration has been amply corroborated by the recent researches is para-psychology.
(3) Ajiva or Matter and Energy or Pudgala :-Ajiva is the second principal constituent of the physical universe. The use of the word Pudgala for matter and energy is quite peculiar to Jain philosophy. This word has been coined from two words-Pud means to combine and Gala means to dissociate. Hence the root meaning of the word Pudgala is a substance which undergoes modifications by combina
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