The Doctrine of the Jainas, Described after the Old Sources c8.32

c8.32

It is either spontaneously or by means of an impulse from without (Thāṇ. 63b) that atoms by merging constitute aggregates (*khandha*) which, as the case may be, may own a greater number of qualities of colour, etc. (Viy. 748b). According as such a one consists of 2, 3, etc., atoms, we speak, as already mentioned, of a *du-paesiya, ti-p.*, etc. up to *ananta-p. khandha*. In connexion with aggregates the atom is called *paramāṇu-poggala*. An aggregate consisting of even-numbered atoms is divisible into halves, but it lacks a middle (it is *amajjha*), whereas conditions are reversed with odd numbers, and both cases are valid with indeterminate numbers, (*x*, and *¿*); it goes without saying, however, that all of them are *sa-paesa* (Viy. 233 a). The way how to decompose an aggregate consisting of 2 and more atoms is demonstrated in Viy. 102b and, more closely, in Viy. 561a. That such a decomposition will result in gaining only complete atoms had to be specifically stressed in 103a. Just as the question of divisibility is being discussed so is the contiguity (*puṭṭha*) between atoms and aggregates by taking as a basis 9 possibilities, either whether it occurs in parts (*deseṇam*, *desehim*) or completely (*savveṇam*) (Viy. 233b). It must be noted, therefore, that the number of atoms constituting an aggregate may divide among one and several *paesa*.