History of Chemistry in Ancient and Medieval India, Incorporating the History of Hindu Chemistry by Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray c40.s3.22

c40.s3.22

The specific characters of the *pudgalas* (Matter) are of two kinds, (i) those which are found in atoms as well as in aggregates, and (ii) those which are found only in aggregates. Qualities of touch, taste, smell, and colour come under the first head. The original *pudgalas* being homogeneous and indeterminate, all sensible qualities, including the infra-sensible qualities of atoms, are the result of evolution. Every atom thus evolved possesses an infra-sensible (or *potential*) taste, smell and colour, (one kind of each) and two infra-sensible tactile qualities, *e.g.*, a certain degree of roughness or smoothness (or dryness or moistness ?) and of heat or cold. *Earth-atoms*, *ap-atoms*, *etc* are but differentiations of the originally homogeneous *pudgalas* The tactile qualities appear first, but qualities of taste, smell and colour are involved in the possession of tactile qualities An aggregate (*skandha*), whether binary, tertiary, or of a higher order, possesses (in addition to touch, taste, smell and colour) the following physical characters :—(*a*) sound, (*b*) atomic linking, or mutual attraction and repulsion of atoms, (*c*) dimension, small or great, (*d*) figure, (*e*) divisibility, (*f*) opacity and casting of shadows, and (*g*) radiant heat and light.