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practice of healing by touch, and the influence on others of the eyes or the voice of the preceptor.
Every entity is associated with internal or external forces, which order stability. Besides the above two mediums or neutral forces, if the entity is sentient, it has some additional forces working in or upon it. They are mental, inner or spiritual, sonic, and physical, especially karmic forces. Sonic energy represents the motor force of sound, and its incantational power is well known. The karmic force is very important for action, volition and rebirth, but this force requires deeper scientific study.
In short, worldly beings are very closely associated with various forms of pudgala: gross bodies, fine bodies and their functioning and they experience various quasi-karmic forms of pleasure and pain through the senses. The processes of life and death are also said to be material, as they involve the gain or loss of material forces such as gross or fine bodies. In this sense, we can say that matter has a tremendous influence on the functions of the jiva and the formation of the universe.
Dharmaastikaaya
As we have seen earlier out of the six substances constituting the universe, jiva and pudgala have the capacity for movement. They are considered to have the capacity for both movement (gatisila) and rest (sthitisila), which is helped by the medium of motion (dharmaastikaaya) and the medium of rest (adharmaastikaaya). Jain texts use the suffix 'astikaaya' (literally meaning having a body) after all the substances except time, to express that they have innumerable space-points, as an analogy similar to that of a body, which has innumerable parmaanus. The words dharma and adharma have also been used in the ethical sense of auspicious (subha) and inauspicious (asubha) by Jainism and other Indian religions, but dharmaastikaaya has a connotation of movement, while adharmaastikaaya has a connotation of rest. Jainism is the only philosophy, which possesses these principles.
Dharmaastikaaya pervades the entire universe, is eternal, formless, and has no colour, smell, touch nor taste. It is the medium of motion by which both the soul and matter move. All the activities and movements of jiva, in both the physiological and psychological senses, are due to the medium of motion. It has an infinite number of space points (pradesas). It, itself, does not move, it facilitates movement. It is indestructible. It is the medium by which movement is possible, although it does not contribute directly either in material substance or as the energy that makes objects move. Dharmaastikaaya is one and whole and does not appear as divisible.
Dharmastikaaya assists movement but does not initiate it. Just as the motion of a fish is possible in water although the water does not or may not make it move, similarly, dharmastikaaya is the medium in which movement is possible. Without this principle, motion is impossible, just as the fish cannot function out of water.
Motion and rest are the two states which are characteristic of pudgala and jiva. They do not have mere motion or mere rest, sometimes they move and sometimes they rest. The principles assisting their mobility are dharmaastikaaya and adharmaastikaaya.
The principles of motion and rest are illustrated in the following dialogue, from the Bhagvati Sutra, between Mahavira and his disciple Gautama
Gautama Ganadhara asked Bhagavan Mahavira 'What is the use of Dharmastikaaya for the jivas?'
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