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The Vibrancy of Pudgala: Thinking about... : 83
The activity of matter is noted as being integrative and disintegrative. Indeed, the very name of pudgala suggests such. Etymologically, the meaning of pudgala comes from two words: pud and gala, meaning to combine and to dissociate respectively.28 Pudgala is given its name because of its nature. However, Sikdar intimates a reason why matter does this dance between association and disassociation. He highlights "the first cause of it is (paramānu) ultimate atom."29 The paramāņu "On account of their mutual touch or contact” integrates and disintegrates from one another, entering into new combinations, interactions and relationships. The paramāņu's nature accounts for Jain philosophy's sophisticated atomic theory, akin to atomic theory as purported by the West. When the paramāņu swerves into a new formation, it becomes a skandha or molecule, which can equally collide into new formations with other skandha or even paramāņu to form more aggregations and collectivities or dissolve back into a paramāņu. Sikdar notes that. “The ultimate capacity and multifariousness of Matter are generated by its integrating and disintegrating nature."30
The canonical literature discussed the nature of matter as being jīvagrāhya or as receivable by the jīva, which means, "[m]atter is endowed with the attribute of reception or attraction from the stand-point of quality. Here we begin to see the concept and doctrine of karma within Jain philosophy and how such a doctrine is associated with matter. Sikdar explains, following the ācārya Umāsvāti, "the individual self attracts particles of Matter which are fit to turn into (karmapudgala) karmic matter as the self is actuated by passions."32 But these very passions are product of matter-ly associations. Indeed, it is "[t]he function of matter... to form the basis of body and organs of speech and mind and respiration (sic),” which means that the soul that attracts matter, i.e. the embodied soul, attracts and bonds with matter because that matter transforms into body, mind, speech, actions, passions which in turn attracts more matter. 33 Matter enters into a cycle of mattering, which is ultimately called saṁsāra.
This brief exposition on the Jain concept of matter is a gloss. In a very apparent way, I am not going far enough, which I wish to make very transparent; indeed, my latest restatement of Sikdar's work is only the tip of the iceberg that is the doctrine of karma, which is but a piece of an overall theory of pudgala. I will return to karma theory later in order to make connections between matter and vital materialism. However, first, I must explore what is vital materialism.
Jane Bennett's vibrant matter In Vibrant Matter, Jane Bennett describes her project as being two-fold. At once, it is a philosophical endeavor, in which to orchestrate a reconsideration of the stereotypical view of matter as "passive stuff, as raw, brute or inert."34 This philosophical conversation, however, also moves into a political undertaking, in which Bennett hopes “To encourage more intelligent and sustainable engagements with vibrant matter and lively things.”35 The theory of vital materialism, then, is ultimately an ecological investment. In the text, she recounts a day in which she finds an assortment of things, objects, or more in her words "stuff," located within a storm drain. She writes, "Glove, pollen, rat, cap, stick. As I encountered these items, they shimmied back and forth between debris and thing -between, on the one hand, stuff to ignore,
