Agam 05 Ang 05 Study Of Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra

Author(s): Suzuko Ohira
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

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but in another sense, that it is ephemeral from the standpoint of the transformation of its properties. The former text is spoken from the standpoint of dravya, which can theoretically appear at any time in or after the late third stage. Among the well-known four standpoints, bhava and kala took a slower course of development, thus the latter text was probably composed in the fourth stage. Incidentally, it is said in III.4.157 that a cloud can be changed into various forms such as a woman by others' power but not by its own. This text must belong to the third canonical stage.
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V.7.213 states that an atom up to an asankhyata-pradesi-composite (abiding in one pradesa) cannot be cut, burnt, get wet, and so on, but an ananta-pradesicomposite (abiding in one pradesa) can. The Jambudvipa p. II.19, which says. that a vyavahara paramaņu (i.e., an atom or a subtle composite) cannot be cut or split by a sharp instrument, is obviously acquainted with this passage. The text above is also quoted in XVI. 10.642 (cf. D-2b-3). The following sutra 643 then states that a wind-being can touch an atom up to an asankhyata-pradesicomposite but not vice versa, that an ananta-prades i-composite can touch a wind-being, and that a wind-being can touch a bladder but not vice versa. These texts must be expressing the solidity of an atom and a subtle composite by the number of atoms it contains. Sufficient solidness thus arises to an ananta-pradesi-composite.
In other systems of thought, for instance, Vaiseşika and Buddhist, atoms are assumed to consist of four elements, i.e., earth, water, fire and air, that are roughly comparable to the three forms of matter, i.e., solid, liquid and gas. These elements are totally absent in the Jaina concept of atoms. Probably for this reason, the Jaina atomists had to consider the nature of solidity of a thing, which came to be expressed by the number of atoms contained in a composite. It should be kept in mind in connection with this, that the canonical authors usually express the number of atoms in a composite by the number of its prades as, wherein the actual dimension of a composite is often not expressed, whether it is present in one pradesa (sukṣma parinata) or in more pradesas (badara parinata); this should be then determined in the given context. V.7.213 might have been composed in the late third and the fourth canonical stages, but XVII.10.643 must have been composed when the relative sizes of one-sensed beings came to be determined in the fifth canonical stage (cf. XIX.3.651 in C-1c-3).
Then V.7.215 tries to show how the nine types of combination of pradesis (e.g., 1 pradesi+1 pradesi) yield the kind/s of spatial combination considered in nine. possible ways (e.g.. 'part+part' meaning 'by a part, a part is touched', and 'part+ parts' meaning 'by a part, parts are touched'. X indicates the occurrence of combination. Pt-part, pts parts, and w-whole) as follows: