History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c24.s3.18

c24.s3.18

The enormous size of the soul, whether at all times or in the last stages of its progress, is identical in both sources, and may therefore be accepted. *Jīva* seems to have been thought of as an aura, extending far beyond the individual's body. Its structure was atomic, and, as we have seen, atoms could not interpenetrate. It is difficult to suggest how the Ājīvikas accounted for the fact that living bodies were capable of approaching one another; doubtless some answer was found to this problem, but it is now lost to us.