Dr. N.L. Kachhara
We now proceed to find out what are varganas in scientific terms. The interpretation of varganas, which is commonly made, has many ambiguities from the scientific perspective. For example, it is said that ahara vargana constitutes the gross, fluid and migratory bodies of organisms. According to science the physical body of any organism is made up of organic molecules which contain elements like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sodium, potassium, calcium, phosphors, iron, etc. These elements are also found in inorganic matter, which is not made from ahara vargana. The bodies of higher mobile beings, microorganisms and plants are said to be made from different order varganas (ahara vargana, LMV and SMV, and IBV respectively) but according to science they are made from similar organic molecules containing common elements. Thus the common impetration offered by scholars of Jain philosophy is not in agreement with scientific view.
Consider the case of sound vargana. It is said that an organism attracts sound vargana. The sound spreads out and travels to the end of loka when the speaker is powerful and travels only a finite distance when the speaker is weak. If it is so then what is sound vargana in scientific sense.
Many of the above ambiguities and difficulties can be overcome if we rightly understand what the varganas are. Let us begin with a paramanu. A paramanu has one colour, one smell, one taste and two- touch. Referring to §3.5 we find that the colour and smell attributes of a paramanu can be described in terms of vibrations. We leave out the taste for the time being, it does not make much difference in our analysis. The paramanu has either positive or negative charge, and it can be either cold or hot which indicates its thermal state. The paramanu is in a state of random motion of various kinds. Thus a paramanu has vibrations, potential energy in the form of charge and heat and kinetic energy in the form of various kinds of motions. So a paramanu is a vibrating and moving energy point.
Lord Mahavira said that paramanu might exist either as a particle or as a wave. It is astonishing to find such a statement in Jain philosophy, a fact that was discovered in science by Loeus de Broglie as late as 1924. The paramanu is so small, and invisible to common man, that it can be detected only by omniscient and persons having high power of clairvoyance (parmavadhi jnan). It is also known that infinite number of paramanus can occupy one space point. This shows that a paramanu is bosonic in character and mass less. This establishes the energy characteristic of paramanu. Further, a paramanu occupies only one space point; it does not extend to other space points. From this consideration it would be logical to assume the paramanu as an energy point. Though the energy in a paramanu exists as potential energy or kinetic energy or both but such fractions of energy are not realized outside paramanu as the paramanu is indivisible. So the energy of a paramanu is the smallest amount of energy that can exist in Free State and therefore can be regarded as a quantum of energy. The energy of paramanu exists as charge, thermal energy and kinetic energy, and a random motion. The charge, thermal energy and kinetic energy do not inter convert but undergo continuous changes due to intrinsic modifications, so that the total quantum energy of the paramanu is held constant.
The paramanu as a 'quantum' energy is called dravya paramanu. Three more types of paramanus are defined in Jain philosophy. The second is ksetra paramanu which is the space occupied by a paramanu called 'pradesa'. A pradesa is the smallest measurable space and, therefore, is the quantum of space. The third is kala paramanu which has been defined as a 'samaya' earlier. Samaya is the smallest unit of measurable time and therefore, is the quantum of time. The fourth is bhava paramanu. The paramanu possesses qualities of colour, smell, taste and touch, which are called bhava. The smallest measurable unit of colour, smell and taste is the colour, smell and taste of a paramanu, which are corresponding quantum of qualities. Similarly the charge of a paramanu is quantum charge and the heat of a paramanu is the quantum heat. Thus a paramanu provides the smallest standard for measurement of matter, space and time; this may also imply a possible interrelationship between these three important units of science.
Paramanus exist with different colour, smell, taste and touch. These attributes of a paramanu also vary in degree. Such variations and their combinations provide in infinite types of paramanus. The frequency of vibration varies with colour, smell (and perhaps also taste) and touch. Two paramanus of similar attribute, say having same frequency, may flock together because of some kind of affinity between them. This forms a vargana of two paramanus. The two paramanus may have similar or dissimilar charge. As more paramanus join the group, the vargana gets bigger in size. When the number of paramanus is countable the vargana is called sankhyatanu vargana of the 2nd order. Increasing number of paramanus provides higher order vargana and so on. As mentioned above as the number of paramanus in the vargana increases the vargana occupies proportionately less space. For example, 10 paramanus may occupy 8 pradesas, 100 paramanus 60 pradesas, 1000 paramanus 400 pradesas, and 10000 paramanus 2000 pradesas and so on. Thus with increase in number of paramanus the number of paramanus per pradesa i.e. energy density, also increases. The energy density in a higher order vargana is more than that in a lower order vargana. What is the effect of energy density on vargana? It appears that when the energy density reaches a critical level the paramanus start bonding.
The varganas up to the 14th order have four- touch. Consider a 4-paramanu vargana of a particular frequency. Let the first paramanu have positive charge and cold touch, the second paramanu positive charge and hot touch, the third paramanu negative charge and hot touch and the fourth paramanu negative charge and cold touch. The four paramanus together have all the four touches and behave as a unit. The vargana can have other combination of paramanus and still have four- touch. When the number of paramanus is great clearly there are large numbers of ways in which a vargana can be formed. A particular combination of colour and smell (and also taste) decides the frequency of paramanu. A four-paramanu vargana can have varying frequencies depending upon the colour, its degree, etc. of the paramanus. Similar frequencies are also possible when the number of paramanus in the vargana is 5, 6 and more. Therefore, for a vargana of a given order as the numbers of paramanus vary in a range there will also be a range of frequency. So each order of vargana has a frequency range.
It has been mentioned that varganas from 2nd order to 14th order are produced by integration of lower order varganas, disintegration of higher order varganas and / or integration /disintegration of varganas of the same order. All varganas up to 14th order are also permanent. This happens perhaps because the paramanus in these varganas loosely cluster and there is no bonding between them. A paramanu or a group of paramanu can easily break away from one vargana and join another vargana. A paramanu may separate out when its frequency changes due to intrinsic modification. This paramanu may join another vargana having its new frequency. Thus integration and disintegration is a continuous process in lower order varganas but no vargana becomes extinct at any time; all order varganas continue to exist all the time and are therefore permanent.
A vargana has both positive and negative paramanus. In a vargana having infinite number of paramanus the number of positive and negative paramanus is not likely to be equal. Therefore, a vargana has a net charge either positive or negative. This charge produces an electric field. A moving vargana with an electric charge also produces a magnetic field. So a moving vargana is an electromagnetic field. Variation in the speed of vargana produces electromagnetic waves, which travel through the space.
A vargana is a bundle or packet of energy. The energy density or energy intensity increases with the order of vargana. Varganas of varying energy intensity have different application. Soul makes suitable use of different intensity varganas. The ahara vargana, luminous vargana, sound vargana, mano vargana and karman vargana fulfill different needs of soul. The non-associable varganas although not directly useful to soul, are source of varganas useful to soul besides taking part in other natural processes.
Varganas of 15th and higher order are supposed to have eight- touch. So in addition to four basic touches, namely cold, hot, positive and negative charge, other four secondary touches - light, heavy, soft and hard are also present. We have seen that the lower order varganas have the four basic touches. How the higher order varganas acquire the other four touches? One plausible explanation is that this happens due to bonding of paramanus. We know that the energy intensity increases with the order of vargana. The energy intensity in the 15th order vargana reaches a critical level which perhaps is enough to cause condensation of energy to corpuscular form or in other words, the energy converts to matter form and this happens because of bonding between paramanus. It may be noted that according to present scientific concept also the elementary particles of matter are, in their essence, nothing else then, condensation of the electromagnetic field. The paramanus bond according to the rules given in §3.1.3. Bonding between two negative paramanus produces light touch and bonding between two positive paramanus produces heavy touch. Bonding also takes place between positive and negative paramanu. The bonding may take place between two paramanus or between an aggregate of paramanus and a paramanu. The existence of light and heavy touch produces another property called mass. The act of bonding requires energy. When two pramanus bond a good part of their energy (potential energy) is used up in bonding reducing the free energy of the vargana, this free energy exists as kinetic energy of motion and vibration. This shows that the maximum velocity a two paramanu-bonded vargana will be less than the maximum velocity of a paramanu or a two paramanu unbound vargana. We therefore can see that lower order varganas having four- touch must have higher maximum velocity than eight touch varganas of higher order. The paramanu having two- touch has the highest maximum velocity.
A question may be raised why the energy of lower order varganas does not exist as mass (corpuscular form). The Einstein equation giving relation between energy and mass does not say anything about the condition required for conversion of energy to mass. It appears that if the energy intensity is less than critical value energy always exists in that form. The lower order vargana, though have a mass equivalent, are free of gravitational effect and are said to be weightless. The higher order vargana in which a good part of total energy exists as mass have gravitational property. Thus the total matter in the universe (loka) exists in three forms (1) paramanu having two- touch, (ii) mass less low order vargana having four touches and (iii) higher order vargana having eight touches and mass.
The first two categories of matter exist in weightless energy form (gravity free) and the third category exists as energy or matter (may be as waves) having gravitational property. The bonding between paramanus produces a localized concentration of energy. Is mass then a condensation of localized concentrated energy?
The bonding between paramanus also produces the other two secondary touches, soft and hard. We know that abundance of cold and positive charge produces the soft touch and the hard touch is produced by abundance of hot and negative charge. This shows that bonding between similar charges paramanus produces soft and hard touches. Both heat and charge are forms of potential energy of paramanu. A high positive charge and cold state means high electric energy and low heat energy. In this case the kinetic energy i.e. velocity of the paramanu can be comparatively high for a given quantum energy of paramanu. A high negative charge in hot state implies that both the electric energy and heat energy are high and therefore the velocity of the paramanu should be comparatively low. When the paramanus belonging to former case bond together, soft touch is produced and when paramanus corresponding to second case combine a hard touch is produced. What do soft touch and hard touch mean in scientific terms? Perhaps this refers to the strength of the bond. A soft touch may signify high bonding strength. It means that once bonded it would be relatively difficult to disintegrate the positive aggregates than the negative aggregates. This is in fact so as we shall see later. In a vargana of infinite paramanus bonding of some paramanus may produce soft touch and the others may produce hard touch. Similarly, the light and heavy touch is produced and the vargana has all the eight touch. This is true for all higher order varganas. The 15th Intermittent Regular vargana is the boarder between the lower order four touch varganas and the higher order eight touch varganas. In this vargana perhaps there is a mix of two categories that is some paramanus bond and some do not.
We now study the characteristics and application of different order varganas. We first take up the last Gross Matter Vargana.
