Ākāśa
Space: one substance, formless, still, with infinite space-points, and the only one of the six that does not stop at the edge of the universe. Inside the loka it is lokākāśa; beyond, alone, it is aloka.
Its function is the simplest in the list: avagāha, room. Everything else is somewhere, and space is the somewhere. It is a lattice of points, each the room of one atom, and inside the loka those points are asaṃkhyāta because the loka is finite; outside they are anantānanta because nothing bounds them. Space neither moves nor holds; the bhāṣya's likeness is the vessel, which is not changed by what is put in it.
That it goes on beyond the loka is what makes the loka a shape and not everything. The other four astikāyas end at the edge; space does not. So Aloka is not nothing - it is space with nothing in it - and a soul or an atom could occupy a point of it if there were any way to get there, which there is not, because the medium of motion stops at the line.
Measurements and counts
| How many | 1 |
|---|---|
| Space-points | ananta |
| Form | none |
| Extension | yes |
| Active | no |
| Fills | the loka, and beyond it without end |
| Does | room - 5.18 |
| Likeness | the vessel |