Heart of Jainism

SR No.: 011099
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Mrs Sinclair Stevenson
Publisher: Mrs Sinclair Stevenson
Publication Year: 1915
Total Pages: 365
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 29 MB

Page 135

FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS
109 unpleasing, and a Siddha being free from pudgaļa is also free from odour.
Pudga!a may have any of the five flavours: pungent, bitter, astringent, sour, or sweet. It may be of five shapes : circular, globular, triangular, square, or oblong, i.e. 'stretched out like a log lying on the earth.' A Siddha, of course, is freed from all shape.
There are eight kinds of 'touch' that pudgaļa may have: it may be light or heavy, hot or cold, rough or smooth, wet or dry; but a Siddha can possess none of these qualities.
Jaina indulge their genius for subdivision by dividing each colour by the two smells, five flavours and eight touches, and then again they divide each smell by the five colours, five tastes and eight touches, and so on, till they get 560 divisions out of pudgaļa.
Pudgaļa is also divided into four classes: Skandha, Desa, Pradeśa, and Paramāņu (i.e. the smallest particle). Skandha, deśa, and pradeśa are linked together, but paramāņu is separate and indivisible.
The pudgaļa enter and leave our bodies incessantly, and are infinitely more numerous than jiva. As we shall see later, the Jaina believe that karma arises out of pudgaļa.
The Jaina hold that it is through Jiva and these five divisions of Ajīva (Dharmāstikāya, Adharmāstikāya, Ākā. śāstikāya, Kāļa, and Pudgaļāstikāya) that the universe exists, and that these serve instead of a creator, whose existence they do not acknowledge.
1 In order that the uninitiated may realize this deep truth, the following legend is told. Once a king crossed a stream wherein a dead dog lay, and to avoid the smell held a cloth across his nose. When he asked his prime minister why he did not do likewise, he replied that he knew his Jaina philosophy, and realized that it was of the nature of pudgala to be sometimes sweet and sometimes evil smelling. Seeing his master unconvinced, he secretly drew water from the very place where the corpse of the dog lay, and, having filtered, iced and spiced it, offered it to the king, who drank it with delight. Afterwards learning its source, he learnt also that the same pudgala may sometimes be of a sweet odour and sometimes of an evil one.