unpleasing,[1] and a Siddha being free from pudgaḷa is also free from odour.
Pudgaḷa may have any of the five flavours: pungent, bitter, astringent, sour, or sweet. It may be of five shapes: circular, globular, triangular, square, or oblong, i.e. ‘stretched out like a log lying on the earth.’ A Siddha, of course, is freed from all shape.
There are eight kinds of ‘touch’ that pudgaḷa may have: it may be light or heavy, hot or cold, rough or smooth, wet or dry; but a Siddha can possess none of these qualities.
Jaina indulge their genius for subdivision by dividing each colour by the two smells, five flavours and eight touches, and then again they divide each smell by the five colours, five tastes and eight touches, and so on, till they get 560 divisions out of pudgaḷa.
Pudgaḷa is also divided into four classes: Skandha, Deśa, Pradeśa, and Paramāṇu (i.e. the smallest particle). Skandha, deśa, and pradeśa are linked together, but paramāṇu is separate and indivisible.
The pudgaḷa enter and leave our bodies incessantly, and are infinitely more numerous than jīva. As we shall see later, the Jaina believe that karma arises out of pudgaḷa . The Jaina hold that it is through Jīva and these five divisions of Ajīva (Dharmāstikāya, Adharmāstikāya, Ākāśāstikāya, Kāḷa, and Pudgaḷāstikāya) that the universe exists, and that these serve instead of a creator, whose existence they do not acknowledge.
- ↑ In order that the uninitiated may realize this deep truth, the following legend is told. Once a king crossed a stream wherein a dead dog lay, and to avoid the smell held a cloth across his nose. When he asked his prime minister why he did not do likewise, he replied that he knew his Jaina philosophy, and realized that it was of the nature of pudgaḷa to be sometimes sweet and sometimes evil smelling. Seeing his master unconvinced, he secretly drew water from the very place where the corpse of the dog lay, and, having filtered, iced and spiced it, offered it to the king, who drank it with delight. Afterwards learning its source, he learnt also that the same pudgaḷa may sometimes be of a sweet odour and sometimes of an evil one.
