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the li possess
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The meanings of the terms 'audārika' etc. denoting the five types of bodies are explained by the commentator keeping in view the special function each one of them performs.
That gross body which is full of flesh, bones, etc. is audārikasarira. Yet it is an important or principal body. Its importance is even more than that of the body possessed by the celestial beings of the highest celestial region. It is so because this is the body which Tirthankara and other great souls possess. Celestial beings cannot possess this body. All the living beings except celestial beings and infernal beings possess this body from their very birth.
Moreover, in the above enumeration the succeeding one is subtler than the preceding one. Though the number of the constituent atoms of the succeeding body is greater than the number of constituent atoms of the preceding body, the succeeding one is subtler than the preceding one. This is pointed out by the commentator.
That body which can assume various forms is called vaikriya. The infernal and celestial living beings possess this type of body from their very birth. And human beings can attain it as supernatural power.
On some special occasion a monk possessed of the knowledge of fourteen Pūrvas creates, by the force of yogic powers, a body. This body is known as ahāraka-sarīra. With the help of this body the monk approaches a tirthankara (the final authority in matters religious) to resolve a doubt occurred to his mind.
That body the function of which is to digest or consume the food materials we take is called Taijasa-sarīra. Thus its function in a way corresponds to that of fire. And the body composed of karmic matter is the kārmana body. Both the taijasa and the kārmana bodies are ever associated with the soul. Only when it attains liberation it is freed from these two bodies also. These two bodies are associated with the soul from the beginningless time. Even during the period of soul's transmigration from one birth to the next they remain associated with it. But during the period of this journey it has no body other than these two. Only after having reached the new birth-place the soul starts constructing audārika or vaikriya body.
In the Satkhandāgama account of the bodies the baddha and mukta types are not discussed. Therein at one place (Book XIV Sū. 129, p. 237) the discussion about the bodies is conducted through ten points-of-investigation, viz. satprarūpaņā, dravyapramananugama, etc. whereas at another place (Book XIV, Sū. 236, p. 321)
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