We have referred to the contribution to Indian Wisdom by the warriors . By their plain living and high thinking they led to the emancipation of human intellect from the thraldom of barren ritualism. While the priest-craft was engaged ind evising sacrifice after sacrifice their minds were dominated by a passionate desire for solving the riddle of the Unvierse and for understanding the nature of the Eternal One behind the world of appearance. This dominant phase of monism centres round the court of Janaka. But there must have been other schools of new Ksatriya thought. This group of thinkers could not compromise with the traditional thought of the Vedic period. They show a strong bias towards Dualism and Pluralism. They represent the liberal tendency in the new thought itself. Whenever they encountered a conflict between their ideals and the Vedias they did not hesitate to repudiate the authority of the latter. To this left wing of the pioneers of thought we owe the Systems of philosophy such as the Sankhya, the Jaina and the Buddhistic schools. It is worthy of notice here, by the way, "that the greatest intellectual performances or rather almost all the performances of significance for mankind in India have been achieved by men of the warrior caste"*(Philosophy of India by Richard Garbe).
The Sankhya system presupposes two kinds of existences, Physical and Spiritual, parakriti and purusha - rather an infinite number of purushas. Salvation according to Sankhya consists in the differentiation between the two, matter and spirit. The individual Purusha secures emancipation by recognising its own intrinsic qualities as being distinct from the Prakritic transportations which go to constitute the cosmic evolution. Not only the genuine physical changes but also the psychological facts such as will, desire and intellect are credited to prakrit while the purushas remain passive spectators of the whole drama, havingnoting to do with moral responsibility.
Evidently following the same dualistic tendencies but differing in the last point of moral responsibility the Jainas and the Buddhists worked out their respective systems with a deep religious colour. The Buddhists seem to have overshot their mark. Equipped with the logic of Ksanikavada they reduced the whole world of reality, physical and spiritual, to mere concatenation of sense-qualities having only a momentary existence - result independently reached after several centuries by Hume. Neither this sensational nihilism of Sakya Muni nor the monistic interpretation is favoured by the Jains. They steer clear of the two extremes. They accept the Purushas of the Sankhyas; but in their hands these Purushas cease to be passive spectators. They are active architects of their own destiny and through their own effort obtain final freedom bearing all the while full moral responsibility for conduct. The Prakrit is also similarly elabortely reconstructed. It is made more definite. It is denied many of its psychological implications. It is identified with Matter in modern scientific sense and it is also given an atomic constitution. It appears under a new name - pudgala. The term pudgala means matter. The Physical object which as the several sense qualities and which occupies space is also called murta and rupa, object. In speaking about Pudgala or matter the Jaina thinkers clearly analyse the qualities apprehended by sense perception. The qualities of touch, taste, smell, colour and sound are generally associated with pudgala.
But the physical bodies that are apprehended by sense perception are constituted by atoms or paramanus. It is this atomic structure of the Universe that is the interesting part of Jaina Physics. The paramanu or atom is defined quite in terms of modern physics. Though modern physics revolutionised the concept of Atom still it has not completely annihilated it. No doubt an atom is a cluster of electrons as complex perhaps as the solar system itself. But the discovery of radio-activity has not interfered with the laws of Physics and Chemistry based upon atomic conception. The only change that modern Physics has introduced is that Atom is no more simple and basic but complex and perhaps secondary. In spite of this complex nature it does maintain its individuality. No modern physicist will deny that it is the fundamental foundation of the structure of the Physcial Universe. It is such an atom or paramanu that is the basis of Physical structure.
The paramanu is neither created nor can be destroyed. It is the permanent basis of the Physical Universe. The several kinds of Physical objects are all constituted by the same class of primordial atom. The paramanu cannot be an object of sense perception. It is in itself transcending the sense experience and as such it is practically murta though it is the basic constituent of all murta, objects.
This primary atom or the material point has an intrinsic attraction to similar atoms. Thus molecular aggregates are formed by the combination of atoms. These molecular aggregates are formed by the combination of atoms. These molecular aggregates are called skandhas. These skandhas are again of infinite variety; you may have a molecule constituted by two atoms or three and so on upto infinite number of atoms. Thus every perceivable object is a skanda and even the whole physical objects being aggregate of atoms or skandhas their changes are entirely due to atomic distintegration or aggregation.
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