Tattvartha Sutra

SR No.: 006796
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Sukhlal Sanghavi, K K Dixit
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 2000
Total Pages: 596
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Tattvartha Sutra, & Tattvarth
File Size: 10 MB

Page 292

CHAPTER TWO
in certain human beings born out of a womb and animals born out of a womb. Thus those entitled to the vaikriya body created through the super-ordinary power in question are none but the human beings born out of a womb and animals born out of a womb. Another sort of super-ordinary power too is considered to be the cause of an artificially created vaikriya body, a power which however is not born of penance but is available since birth. This sort of superordinary power is said to be possessed only by certain gross-formed air-bodied beings; hence they too turn out to be ones entitled to the type of vaikriya body created artificially. The aāhāraka body is exclusively an artificial creation. Its cause is but a special superordinary power which is found in no species other than human beings, and among human beings too it is found only in certain specially competent monks.
Question: Which specially competent monks ?
Answer: Those versed in the fourteen Purva-texts.
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Question: When do they exercise the super-ordinary power in question and for what purpose?
Answer: When a doubt arises as to some subtle question in order to get this doubt removed they do so. That is to say, when a monk versed in the fourteen Purva-texts happens to harbour a doubt as to some difficult subject-matter and no omniscient personage is available to him in the neighbourhood then in case he finds it impossible to reach another world-region through his audārika body he exercises his special super-ordinary power and creates a small body of the size of a cubit which on account of being made up of auspicious physical particles is handsome, on account of being created for a praiseworthy purpose is blameless, on account of being extremely subtle is devoid of resistance that is, such as obstructs nothing and is obstructed by nothing. Through such a body the monk in question approaches an omniscient personage available in some other world-region, gets his doubt removed at the hands of the latter, and returns back to his, original seat. All this takes place well within the space of a muhurta.