Studies in Jainism

Author(s): Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta
Publisher: Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta

Page 50

JAINISM : ITS PHILOSOPHY AND ETHICS
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cay-identity and permanence in the midst of variety and change.
Such ultimate reals are five in number: jiva, pudgala, dharma, udharma, and ākāśa. These are primary constituent elements of the cosmos, and are technically called pañcāstikāya, the five astikayas. Asti implies existence, and kaya, volume. Astikaya therefore means a category which is capable of having spatial relations. Here spatial relation should be differentiated from volume associated with matter. Materiality or corporeality is a property which is peculiar to pudgala or matter. Pudgala alone is murta (corporeal), the others are amurta (non-corporeal), though they are astikayas having spatial relations. Of these, the first, jiva astikāya, relates to Jivas or Atmans or souls. It is the only cetana (conscious) category. the other four being acetanas. This cetana entity, Jiva, is entirely different from pudgala or matter, which represents the inorganic world. If käla (time) is added to these five astikāyas, then we have the six dravyas (substances) of Jaina metaphysics. The time category is different in nature from the five astikāyas. Whereas the astikayas are capable of being simultaneously associated with multiple spatial points or pradeśas, time can have only unilateral relation of moments, and hence cannot have simultaneous relations to a group of multiple points.
DRAVYA AND GUŅAS
Dravya is that which manifests itself through its own gunas and paryayas-qualities and modifications. The usual illustration given is gold with its qualities of yellowness, brilliance, malleability, etc. Its paryāyas or modifications are the various ornaments that can be made of it. One ornament may be destroyed and out of the gold another ornament may be made. The disappearance of one paryāya or mode and the appearance of another, while the substance remains permanent and constant, are the characteristics of every dravya. Utpada and vyaya, appearance and disappearance, always refer to the changing modifications, while permanence always refers to the underlying