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Elaboration-In the earth-bodied beings the consciousness is not apparent. The activities of movement or stirring are also not clearly evident. Therefore, this question naturally arises that when an earth-bodied being does not move, utter sound, see or hear, how to accept it as a being ? How to accept that it suffers pain through tearing or piercing?
In order to remove this doubt, the author has tried to elicit the awareness of pain among the earth-bodied beings by giving three examples.
First Example-A person is by birth blind, deaf, dumb and crippled; he has a mere shape of the human body. When someone pierces or cuts him with some weapon, such as a sword or a lance, he is unable to express his pain through speech; he can neither move out of fear nor can he express his pain by some other activity. Should it be inferred that he is not a being or that he does not suffer due to cutting and piercing?
As that congenitally blind and crippled person suffers pain in spite of his inabilities like those of speech, sight and movement, likewise the earth-bodied beings suffer pain even in absence of sense organs.
Second Example-Taking a normal healthy man as an example it is shown that if all the thirty two listed parts of his body are pierced or cut at the same time, he will not be able to see, hear, speak, move, or in any other way express his suffering. This does not mean that he has no consciousness or he does not suffer pain. In the same way the earth-bodied beings also pulsate with life in spite of the absence of evident consciousness. They have the consciousness to experience, therefore they too experience or suffer pain.
Third Example-Here the comparison has been done with an unconscious person. When a person is hit and made unconscious or almost nearing death, there is an absence of any visible activity. However, his inner awareness or consciousness is not lost. In the
आचारांग सूत्र
( २८ )
Illustrated Acharanga Sutra
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