Agam 05 Ang 05 Study Of Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra

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

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V1.1.259 discusses the time when beings begin to nourish themselves after abandoning their old bodies. They first start eating when they finish their transit path, therefore A' take nutrition at the 4th instant at the latest and the rest of beings do so at the 3rd instant at the latest. It also considers that they eat least at the first moment of their rebirth and at the final moment of their last birth. This text ought to be placed again in the final canonical stage.
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(8) Marana samudghāta and ahara Marana samudghata relevant to the problem of ahara is taken up in the following texts. In V1.6.244 it is said that after having performed marana samudghata, beings begin to nourish themselves and bind bodies in the places of their new birth, but some beings return to their old places, then upon having performed marana samudghata for a second time, they are born in their new places, nourish themselves and bind bodies. This idea of performing marana samudghata twice must have occurred from the empirical observations that sometimes men who are believed to be dead come back to life. It is said in X VI.6/11.603-8 that if partial marana samudghata were performed, earthbeings, water-beings and wind-beings take nutrition prior to taking rebirth, but if samudghata were completely performed, they are born first in their appropriate places prior to taking nutrition. XX.6.670-72 likewise take up the problem of marana samudghata and the time of ahara of earth-beings, water-beings, and wind-beings, while referring to X VI.6/11.603-8. The Prajn a panā XXVI (ahara) and IXXVI (Samudghata) are silent about the problem. We would at present like to assign V1.2.244 which does not involve the mechanism of transit path to the fourth-fifth stages, and the rest of the texts involving the mechanism of transit path to the fifth canonical stage.
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1.7.57-58 consider the spatial modes of a soul when it takes birth in its new body and when it abandons its old body. It is said that a soul with its entire atma-prade's as is born in a whole body, and a soul with its entire atma. prade'sas departs from the whole body of its last birth. This concept is examined by a set of four spatial modes, i.e., by part in part, by part in whole, by whole in part, and by whole in whole. The Jainas insist that a soul seizes its new body and abandons its old body by way of 'by whole in whole'. This problem involves the concept of the carrier of a soul in its transit path. According to the Jainas, a soul's entire atma-prade'sas are encased in its kar. mic body accompanied by taijasa 'sarira to accomplish its transmigration. This concept is based on the old idea that a soul's entire atma-prade'sas necessarily pervade its body regardless of its size. But according to some non-Jainas, the soul is vibhu, therefore it must pervade the entire universe in its transmigratory path, which is expressed by 'by part in whole' in the formula above. These passages similarly discuss that a soul, upon departing from its old body and upon entering its new body, nourishes itself with complete or