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to five-sensed beings. Then it is said in XVI.1.561 that fire-beings, whose life span in a fire place is one samaya at minimum and three days at maximum, cannot glow without the existence of wind-beings. We would like to assign the third canonical stage to these two texts.
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As to the nature of wind-beings, II.1.86 reads that many hundred-thousand times they die and come into existence as the same wind-beings, and that they die by mere touch and go with or without bodies, for they take new birth with taijasa and karmana sariras, upon abandoning their old audarika and vaikriyika 'sariras. This text is cited in XVI.1.560 which informs us that windbeings are born in an anvil. A mention is then made in III.4.156 that a windbody transforms (vikurvana) itself into a single sheet like a flag to fly by its own power, in contrast to a cloud which is caused to change (parinama) into various forms by others' power (cf. III.4.157 in B-1). It is assured in II.1.84 that all one-sensed beings breathe inasmuch as two to five-sensed beings do, even though this fact is beyond our sense perception. The contents of all these sutras are generally known to the Prajnapana, therefore they ought to be placed in the third canonical stage. V.2.179 talks about four kinds of wind. blowing in all directions in each continent and ocean (cf. the Jnatadharma I. 11), and it says that these winds blow because wind-beings move according to their own accords, or because Vayukumaras and Vayukumaris cause them to move. This text refers to II.1.86 above, and to II.1.85 (X) which refers to the Prajnapana. We assign it to the fifth canonical stage.
Pertaining to plant-beings, a list of ananta (kayika) jivas is offered in VII.3.276. A more advanced list of sadharana-sarira-badara-paryapta-kayikas appears in the Prajnapana I along with their exposition. Our text can therefore be placed in the third canonical stage.
V.2.315 classifies asivisas or snakes into two,i.e., natural snakes (jati-asivisas) and metaphorical snakes (karma-asivisas). The venom of natural snakes, who are divided into four types, is explained by way of the analogy that it is intense enough to pervade the bodies comparable to the sizes of cosmographic regions such as Bharata and samaya kṣetra. Metaphorical snakes consist of A.M.G, but not H, and an attempt is made here to locate to which precise class of A, for instance, they belong. The classification of beings offered here is well-known to the works belonging to the fourth stage. The Vyavahara X lists a text called Asivisabhavana which is now lost. A classification of jati asivisas makes its appearance in the Sthana IV.4.435. As we have previously discussed, the concept of bhavana is of a considerably later origin. And such an idea as karma-asivişa must be a product of around the age when mythological accounts came into vogue. We therefore place our text in the fourth-fifth canonical stages.
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