Dravyasaṃgraha serves as a kind of metaphysical map that undergirds Jain cosmological reflection. By presenting a concise yet systematic account of the six fundamental substances—jīva (soul), pudgala (matter), dharma (medium of motion), adharma (medium of rest), ākāśa (space), and kāla (time)—it delineates what ultimately exists and how these realities frame the universe as a whole. These substances are described as eternal and indestructible, and together they constitute the entirety of loka, the universe. Nothing beyond these six is required to account for either the material or spiritual dimensions of existence, so cosmology becomes an ordered reading of how these dravyas coexist and function.

Within this framework, Dravyasaṃgraha clarifies the spatial structure of reality by distinguishing between the realm where the other substances operate and the space beyond. Through its treatment of ākāśa and the media of motion and rest, it marks out lokākāśa, the inhabited universe in which jīvas and pudgala move or come to rest, as distinct from alokākāśa, the empty space where no souls or matter are present. Dharma and adharma are not moral categories here but subtle cosmological conditions that make motion and rest possible only within that bounded universe. In this way, the text offers a rationale for why the activities of souls and matter are confined to a finite cosmic field surrounded by an infinite expanse of “empty” space.

The temporal dimension is given equal weight through the account of kāla as that which enables transformation and change. By distinguishing real time from conventional measures, Dravyasaṃgraha provides the conceptual basis for understanding the universe as a realm of ceaseless yet ordered change, without invoking a beginning or an end to the cosmos. Cycles of rise and decline, as well as the unfolding of karmic processes, can thus be seen as modes of transformation within an eternal temporal continuum rather than as episodes in a created world.

Finally, the text illuminates how these substances interact while preserving their distinct identities, thereby grounding both the structure of the cosmos and the drama of spiritual bondage and liberation. Jīva, in association with pudgala in the form of karmic matter, experiences the complex conditions of embodied existence within the stratified regions of the universe. Yet the substances themselves never lose their inherent qualities, even as their modes continually change. Dravyasaṃgraha thus offers not a pictorial cosmology but the underlying ontological grammar through which the Jain vision of a non-created, eternally ordered universe becomes intelligible.