The Doctrine of the Jainas, Described after the Old Sources c8.25

c8.25

Viy. 420b; Ṭhāṇ. 251b say that the individual soul has as many *paesa* as has the space of the world. But this does not refer to the limiting case of the Kevalin as the comm. wants us to believe; it simply says that both have units. One individual soul occupies the room of 1/¿ *ang.* (or either more) of such quantities (T. 5, 15) as are presumed by the part of that or that size acquired through Karman. So then (substantially) the soul of an elephant equals that of a louse, as is explained by the simile of the lamp whose light, as the case may be, will illuminate a large or a small hollow room (Rāyap. 140a, referred to by Viy. 313a). T. 5, 16 in giving this simile its literary expression hereto introduces the conception of contraction and expansion. They stand for different densities within the same number of units, i.e., ¿ in different bodies (Siddh. ref. to T. 5, 8).¹ For the historical importance of the theory (Viy. 365a), according to which the soul equals the body in size, see JACOBI GGA 1919, 17.