Page Text
________________
138
THE NINE CATEGORIES OF
still grosser sin may result in the malformation of every
limb and every feature (Hunda saisthāna). The Pursuing our way down the long list we come next to Sthävara a rather heterogeneous group of ten results of sin. Certain Daśaka.
sins condemn the soul that commits them to be born in the next life in the class of motionless beings (Sthāvara), or perhaps to be so tiny as to be invisible and unable to move (Sükşma). Other sins prevent a soul acquiring the full number of powers and senses that belong to the class in which it is born (Aparyāpti). A still more dreaded result of sin forces a soul to take up its abode in a body already inhabited by numberless other souls (Sädhāraṇa). Jaina, as we have seen, believe that thousands of lives lodge in every single potato, onion, artichoke and beet; and so they never eat any tuber, root, or bulb, lest they should take not onc but thousands of lives by so doing. No punishment is more feared by the Jaina than that the jiva, instead of having some shelter (human, animal, or vegetable) to itself, may have to lodge along with myriads of others in an overcrowded dwelling. Again, as the result of sin, the body that the jiva inhabits may be complete in every respect, but the limbs may be unstable (Asthira): a shaky hand, a palsied head and loose teeth are all put down to sin in a past life. Sin may make a man unlucky and his name so inauspicious (Aśubha) that people do not like to mention it carly in the morning, lest misfortune pursue them all day; or it may make a man a failure (Durbhaga), so that everything he touches goes wrong. The voice, too, may be affected (Dusvara), so that it becomes unpleasing to the listener and lacks all harmony: a donkey's bray, the hooting of an owl and the cracked voice of a man all bear witness to sin in a previous life. Though the sound of a voice may be all right, the effect of sin may be to take away all authority from it (Anādeya) : when a man's commands are disobeyed, his warnings disregarded, and his words disbelieved, it is plain that he must have sinned deeply in his last birth. One notices, too,
| SR No. | 011099 |
| Book Title | Heart of Jainism |
| 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 |