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A CRITIQUE
Ju
radiance of the cosmos shattered into its component colours can reveal the identity of atoms pulsating thousands of millions of miles away Over the years, the spectral lines from a star proved to hold amazing quantities of information the composition of the star, the speed of the star moving towards or away from us, the speed of its rotation, temperature of its surface; the strength of its magnetic field etc Stars are no longer pin-points of inscrutable light but objects with individual personalities
All this is possible because colour is an inherent quality of matter Stars emit coloured lights and each star can be pictured as a colourful spectrum which is its finger-print Its composition is found by identifying the patterns of lines that its chemical elements cast across its spectrum The speed of a star moving towards or away from us is indicated by the so called 'Doppler effect'or shift of its spectral lines The shift is towards the blue, (or left) end of the spectrum if the star is advancing, towards the red (or right) if receding The greater the star's speed the more its lines shift The amount of shift is calculated by comparing the lines with those of a laboratory specimen
(II) SPARSA (TOUCH)
The quality of sparsa (touch) is also of great importance It should be carefully noted that besides the four sparsa given above which are inherent in all states of matter, there are four additional sparsa viz ,heavy light, hard and soft or (sometime rough and smooth) which are acquired by certain types of composite bodies Thus there are two classes of materal objects (1) chatuhsparsi and 11) aştasparsı Out of the eight varganās" (groups) of pudgala which
17 See pp 58-61 above
