The Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus c4.s5.2

c4.s5.2

*General Properties of Matter.*—The specific characters of the Pudgalas (Matter) are of two kinds, (1) those which are found in atoms as well as in aggregates, and (2) 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 (परिणाम). 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 and moistness?) and of heat or cold. Earth-atoms, Ap-atoms, etc., are but differentiations of the originally homogeneous Pudgalas. The tactile qualities (खर, स्निग्ध, उष्ण, शीत) 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 : (1) sound, (2) atomic linking, or mutual attraction and repulsion of atoms, (3) dimension, small or great, (4) figure, (5) divisibility, (6) opacity and casting of shadows, and (7) radiant heat-and-light.