Key of Knowledge

SR No.: 006702
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown
Publication Year: 1919
Total Pages: 1204
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 631

THE HOLY TRINITY.
611
with material impurities that it cannot be reflected back on itself. As we rise higher in the scale of being, some sort of crude and imperfect reflectiveness becomes apparent in some of the five-sensed animals -monkeys, horses, elephants, and the like--indicating that the load of impurities carried by their souls is considerably lessened, though not sufficiently so to enable reason to have full play. These are the two main types of life in the animal kingdom ; apart from them, there is a third, the lowest -metals, plants, and the like -- which are characterised by the purely vegetative function of life. They have only the sense of touch, and spend their whole life in a mechanical way, as if heavily drugged. They have neither memory nor reflection, nor even instinctive consciousness.
According to Jainism, living beings are either sangi (having a mind, i.e., the organ of reflection or thought) or asangi (a=not to sangi, hence the mindless). The sangi enjoy the power of deliberation, and are able to learn if taught; they respond when they are called, and can also be trained.
The organ of mind (dravya mana) is a body of fine matter which is the instrument of reflection or thought. As already stated, every living organism is not endowed with it, the asangi having neither true volition, nor judgment, but only the power of sensation and of responding to the external stimulus in an instinctive or mechanical way. All living matter, it will be seen, is irritable and contractile, and capable of responding to the external excitation in a mechanical, instinctive way. The simplest organisms are of this description; as we rise higher