Agam 05 Ang 05 Study Of Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra

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

Page 157

precise place in the universe where he ought to be born next. The faculty to determine to which cosmographic region an earth-being, for instance, should proceed next thus had to be entrusted to something else other than the ayus karma. And this must have been the acute problem that the Jaina theoreticians were facing during the late third and the fourth canonical stages.
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Logically speaking, the capacity as such ought to be assigned to the sum total of karma prakrtis accumulated by an individual being in this very life. The concept of lesya, which expresses a general index of the total content making up an individual personality, was readily available in the then non-Jaina schools. (Cf. Glasenap: The Doctrine of Karman, p.47, n.2; Basham: History and Doctrine of the Ajivikas, pp.139, 244ff.) It thus appears that the Jaina theoreticians seized this current concept, and assigned to it a faculty to determine a being's next birth place. This explains why they formulated the basic rule that a soul has to carry his last le's ya in his transmigratory path even though it is not karma, and why le'sya was called karma-le'sya in the beginning.
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Lesyā is of six kinds, i.e., krşna, nila, kapota, tejo, padma and sukla, which differ from the five colours assigned as the properties of karma matter, i.e., krsna, nila, lohita, pita and 'sukla. These six le'syas exhibit psychical and emotional tinges, which are not the colours of karma matter. Curiously enough, the then canonical authors engage in argument involving the idea that le'sya can be perceived by avadhi, as we will see soon. Then, le'sya must have been conceived as something material in connection with colour, like shining light tinged with colour (V'slis to burn, see Tatia's foreword to Lesyako'sa, p.22; lesa, see Schubring's Doctrine of the Jainas, pp.195ff.). Light is material in nature for the Jainas. The shining light tinged with colour, which is expressive of a personality-index derived by the sum total of a being's karma prakrtis, is free from weight, and it can accompany his karmaņa 'sarira and guide him to reach his next birth place. The then Jaina theoreticians seem to have thus hit the mark in order to solve their immediate problem.
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Now, these six le's yās had to be allotted to the samsari jivas, excluding the ayoga kevalis whose immediate next place to go to is Siddha'sila. Jivas in 24 dandakas are located in the universe in due cosmographic order except in the case of A'. The general characteristic features of beings in this and that class were already known to the Jainas in the late third canonical stage, and the rebirth chart was on the way of being made. Therefore, it was not a difficult task for them to assign three light le's yas to the heavenly beings and three dark le'syas to the hellish beings. Those occupying the upper cosmographic regions have lighter lesyas and those residing in the lower regions have darker le'syas as they proceed. In effect, these cosmographic regions came to be expressed in terms of le'sya of G and H. Likewise the le'syas of M were broadly mapped out by going over the geography of samaya kşetra (cf. Prajnapana
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