जै · The Jain Encyclopedia
Section · 10 substances

The Six Substances

षड्द्रव्य

What the universe is made of: souls, matter, the media of motion and rest, space, and time, according to some - and why five of them stop at the loka's edge.

The Tattvārthasūtra's fifth chapter lists six substances and nothing else exists: jīva, the souls; pudgala, matter, the only one with form; dharma and adharma, the media of motion and rest, one each, filling exactly the loka; ākāśa, space, one and infinite; and kāla, time, which the Śvetāmbara sūtra admits with the words "according to some". The atlas draws them as the overlap they are, and for the first time draws the edge of the universe as what it is - the end of the two media, not a wall - with space going on beyond it as aloka. A second view tables the six as the sūtra compares them, with what each does for the rest and the bhāṣya's likeness for each: the water and the fish, the shade and the traveller, the vessel, the lamp. Follows the Śvetāmbara reckoning throughout.

All of it is also walkable as an interactive atlas of nested maps.

Open in the interactive atlas →

The six 7

What each does 3

समयं गोयम! मा पमायए

Do not be heedless, Gautama, for even a single samaya.

Uttarādhyayana Sūtra 10