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perceived through intuition or superior apprehension, and cannot be grasped by sensory organs or measuring instruments.
From the point of view of substance, paramaanu is indivisible, but modally, it is not so. Modally, the four characteristics of colour, taste, smell and touch have their infinite modifications. Paramaanu can have a single characteristic or can express itself in many modes, and it can transform itself from one characteristic to another such as colour to taste, taste to smell, smell to touch. Matter with one quality or transformed qualities can remain in that form from the smallest unit to innumerable units of time. Jains describe empirical entities or events in their relation to substance (dravya), area (ksetra), time (kaala), and attribute (bhaava), so that they can have a better understanding of an event or substance and its forms and characteristics.
Types of Matter: The two categories of matter are the paramaanu and the skandha; they are classified by size:
very gross, containing gross objects such as earth, stones and wood; gross, which takes forms such as milk, yoghurt, butter, water, oil and other fluid material; gross-fine, which takes forms such as light and electricity; fine-gross, which takes forms such as wind and vapour; fine, the objects which belong to this category cannot be experienced by the senses, an example is the constituent of mind (manovargana); fine-fine, the
ultimate particles of karma, sense imperceptible; The scriptural classification of living (jiva) and non-living (ajiva) is based on the absence or presence of soul with the pudgalas. Jiva utilises necessary pudgalas for the formation of the body: sense organs, blood, muscles, etc. They are combined and discharged by the jiva: nail cuttings, hair and excretions. Paramaanus can amalgamate among themselves without the help of jiva, e.g. rainbows and clouds.
Origin, state and condition in matter can be both permanent and impermanent. Matter is permanent as substance, but when modified it seems to be impermanent. The objects that are formed through the combination or integration of paramaanus change their nature and structure. These objects could be gross or fine and may occupy one point of space to innumerable points of space. They may pervade the entire occupied universe, which, itself, is the aggregation of innumerable ultimate particles.
Motion of Paramaanu: The ultimate particle (paramaanu) is characterised by motion. Its motion is sometimes due to causation and sometimes without. The ultimate particle, as in a karmic body, can be immobile because of jiva, as it is neither transformed nor combined into molecules by jiva. In fact, an ultimate particle may not always be in motion. In the smallest unit of time, one samaya, it can travel from one point of space in the universe to the farthest point of space. The medium of motion aids the mobility of paramaanu and the medium of rest aids its immobility.
The motion of ultimate particles has certain limits. Natural motion is always in straight lines. If there are some crosscurrents of other ultimate and material particles, the motion is curved. Jiva is not directly responsible for the motion of an ultimate particle, but jiva's own volitions can influence its motion. The motion of ultimate particles may be due to further inherent causes or due to some other external factors present in matter.
The special stationary wave motion is the norm in a free elementary particle of matter, and maintains the natural hexagonal shape of the free particle and its attributes, as
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