Agam 05 Ang 05 Study Of Bhagvati Vyakhya Prajnapti Sutra

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

Page 49

alternatives resembling the later saptabhangi formulae. A discussion of the arrangement of atom-composites by way of carama-acarama usually disappears in the context of atomic theory in a later period. The importance of this discussion here lies therefore not in the atomic theory for itself, but in the point that this way of applying anuyoga items to replace no-carama-acarama by avaktavya to such a topic, or the thought pattern of the Jainas as such, inevitably opened a path to the doctrine of saptabhangi in the post-canonical period.
In Chapter XII (Parinama), 10 kinds of ajiva parināma are listed, i.e., bandhana, gati, sansthana, bheda, varna, gandha, rasa, sparsa, agurulaghu (which is too early to appear in this stage) and sabda. The rules of atomic combination are laid down in connection with bandhana. The concept that bhasa and le'syā are material is expounded in Chapter XI (Bhasa) and X VI (Le'sya).
The classification of jivas including siddhas is made in Chapter 1 (Prajnapana), and their abiding places in the loka are described by way of specifying their abodes during a span of life (svasthana) and their abodes during marana samudghata and upapada in Chapter I (Sthana). While explaining how many bodies are possessed at present (and were possessed in the past) by this and that class of jivas, Chapter X (Carama) can offer a population census of beings in each class. A migration chart of beings from one gati to others is worked out in Chapter VI (Vyutkranti). This chapter informs us about the time during which no birth and no death take place in this and that gati, and how many are born in one instant in this and that gati. Chapter IV (Sthiti) and Chapter XVI (Kayasthiti) inform about the life span of beings in one birth and in the consecutive births in one and the same class. Chapter XX (Antakriya) computes how many in this and that class can attain siddhahood in the immediate next birth and/or after many births, and how many in this and that class can be liberated in one instant, minimum and maximum. All this convinces us that the then Jaina theoreticians were busy in drawing a cosmographical picture of the population and mobility of jivas, within the eternal and constant framework of which can be allowed the variant phases of the individual beings, that are again calculated in Chapter V (Visesa).
Then, efforts are made to determine the characteristic features of living beings in this and that class. The physical structures and behaviour of these beings are discussed in Chapters XI (Sarira), XXI (Avagahana), NV (Sthiti), XV (Kayasthiti), XV (Indriya), XVI (Prayoga), VI (Ucchuasa), XXV (Ahara), IX (Yoni), XXXIV (Pravicarana), V (Sanjna) and XXXVI (Samudghāta). The emotional and mental behaviour of living beings involving their religio-ethical activities is treated in Chapters XXXV (Vedana), XN (Kaşaya), XVI (Le'sya),