Early Jainism

SR No.: 001520
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: K K Dixit
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1978
Total Pages: 120
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Agam, Canon, & Philosophy
File Size: 7 MB

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Early Jainisin
316) and that of heaven (p. 323) which appear incidentally and are close to the corresponding standard accounts of later times,
Chapter III It undertakes the treatment of a topic that was highly technicalized in later times (perhaps, first of all in Prajñāpanā) -viz. 'how the various types of living beings assimilate their nourishment. A comparative estimate of the two versions reveals that the present one on the whole moves within the circle of ideas that are understandably on a popular, non-technical level. Thus here we are told how plants, mon an animais a siinilate their nourishment. This account is as much notable for its classification of the types of living beings in question (that of plants being elaborate in the extreme and rather unique, that of men and animals brief and standing pretty close to its iater standard Version) as for its treatment of the topic of nourishment, but the latter is certainly free from all techoicalities. The chapter closes with a summary statement to the effect that there are also living beings of the form of earth, water, fire and air and that they receive their nourishment from the bodies where they take their seats (p. 352): this whole concept is a typical technicality of the Jainas but the noteworhy thing is that the present chapter of Sūtrakịtänga II does not make much of it.
Chapter IV Here an interesting aspect of a Jaina ethical corcept is subjected to examination. As a thesis it has been laid down that one who has not renounced evil acis is an evil--doer even at the time when one is not undertaking an acting through body, speech or mind (p. 356). On crossexamination the explanation is forthcoming that such a one is disposed to act in an evil manner even when he is not actually acting thus and that it is this his disposition which makes him an evil-doer (pp. 357-61). But then arises a different sort of difficulty. For only such a being can be possibly guilty of evil-doing who can distinguish between good and evil, but according to the Jainas there are also living beings of the form of earth, water, fire, air, plants - as also tiny insects - which can make no such distinction and the question is how the present thesis is to be applied to the living beings such as these. The answer forthcoming is that such living beings are to be deemed evil-doers simply in view of the fact that they have not positively renounced evil acts (pp. 362-65). The technical character of the latter question-and-answer is obvious, but it is indicative of a germine apprehension that must have exercised the mind of the Jaina theoretician at an earliest stage; (the question has been often asked and answered in an essentially similar fashion also in Bhagayatisütra which is a good repository of fairly old pieces of Jajna theoretical speculation).