The Doctrine of the Jainas, Described after the Old Sources c8.239

c8.239

The *lessā* or the “type of the soul”, as LEUMANN (Aup.) named it, is represented (Ṭhāṇ. 361b; Samav. 11b, 145b) by the six colours of black (*kaṇha*), dark (*nīla*), grey (*kāu*), yellow (*teu*), pink (*pamha*) and white (*sukka*) each of them being determined in the Lessā-paya (Pannav. 17 (360b) by a number of comparisons which, however, are said not to reach up to “reality”. The same is done with taste (*āsāya*, 364 a), and moreover, the first three are considered as evil smelling and unpleasant, the last three as good smelling and pleasant (266b; Ṭhāṇ. 175a). Gradations in each of the qualities—of which taste, smell and feeling range far behind colour—are calculated by subdividing them by three into minimum, medium and maximum up to 3⁵, and atoms (∞), their categories (*vaggaṇā*, ∞) and space volume (¿ units) are determined (367b). Thus it follows that we are fully concerned with a material product of the Karman, that is, so T, 2, 6 says, with a product of its realization (*udaya*). Likewise there is no doubt that we have the insertion of the primitive idea² of the moral qualification of the soul by colour being adapted to Jain dogmatics. By ascribing the second effect to the Karman the juncture becomes clearly visible. Moreover, this gives proof of the secondary character of the *leśyā*- theory that it might stay out of the system without leaving a gap in its composition.