Tulsi Prajna 1975 07

SR No.: 524503
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Mahavir Gelada
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
Publication Year: 1975
Total Pages: 116
Language: Hindi
Classification: Magazine, India_Tulsi Prajna, & India
File Size: 7 MB

Page 56

fication of animals, is that the former appears to lay stress on the origin, while the latter appe. ars to stress the capacity to perform.
(Caraka and Susruta "both followed this classification in their medical treatises (J. L. Bhaduri, K. K. Tewari and Biswamoy Biswas, Section on Zoology in “A Concise History of Sciences in India, page 426" ).
Jain treatises contain a different type of classification. Umāsväti, a renowed Jain author, in his work Tattvarthasūtra gives a classification based on the number of senses possessed by organisms.
"Living beings of the world are divided into two, the mobile and the immobile" (Sansärina sthrasa-- sthāvara- Chapter 2, Verse 12).
"Earth, water, fire, air and plants are immobile" ( Prithivyapthejovayu vanaspata ya sthāvara-Verse 13)
“Those with two or more senses are mobile" ( Dvindriyadayastrāsa -- Verse 14)
"The sensory organs are 5 in number" - ( Panchendriyani - Verse 15 )
"The plants come last and have one sense" ( vanaspatyantānāmekam-Verse 22 )
"The worms, ants, bees, and human beings:bave one more increasingly (Krmipipeelikabhramaramanusyādīnām ekaikavrdhāni - verse 23)
The essential difference bet. ween the Vedic or Aryan texts, and the Jain texts, in the classi
There is a close similarity between the classification of animals in Tholkappiyam and the classification to the Jaina texts. Firstly they are both based upon the exercise of the sensory powers. Secondly plants and animals are all brought within the purview of an intergrated classification of all living things. Plants are uni-sensory and among the 10west. Animals are listed according to increasing sensory powers.
The author of Tholkappiyam says about his classification that it is based upon the views of enlightened scholars. His is therefore not an original classification. The inspiration for the system appears to be the views of scholars of Jain persuasion.
Attention appears to have been drawn to this similarity between the Tholkappiyam text and the Jain views by Shri S. Vaiyapuri Pillai in an artical in Chen Tamil, a Journal of the Madurai Tamil Sangam in 191920 ( p. 339). In his History of Tamil Language and Literature Prof. Vaiyapuri Pillai states “Tholkappiar flourished during the second half of the 5th century A. D.. He was a Jain by persuasion, for the Jaina classifi
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