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Let us look at the seed of a plant. When the seed is planted in the soil, it must necessarily break the shell to sprout out. This is the first step in its attempt to grow. Then the sprouting seed further undergoes change and some portion of it, comes out seeking the sunlight and the other portion goes down into the soil, evolves and gradually undergoes enormous changes into the root system. Similarly, the portion that shoots up into the air and sunlight will also undergo enormous changes, of sprouting out in to tendrils and leaves, finally resulting in branches and the stem of the plant all of which are engaged in the task of producing nourishment with the help of sunlight. At every stage, we find change, the old leaves being shed off and the new shoots coming in. This is the general law of nature. The life of the seed never exterpates; it lives, even though it is being constantly changed, and this is what reality is. So, in a substance some modification originates and some other passes away, but the substantiality neither originates nor is destroyed.' He further exemplifies as follows, yathaiv chotpadyamānam pāņdubhāven, vyaymānań
haritbhāvenāwatișthmānań sahakārfalatvenotpādavyayadhrauvyanyekavastuparyāyadwāren
sahakārfalaṁ...? It means, a mango in its unripened state is green in colour. As the process of ripening continues, it becomes yellow in colour. This shows the destruction of green colour and origination of yellow in the same fruit called mango, which shows its permanency.
Lord Mahavira never admitted the absolute expression of any concept as permanent or impermanent. Bhagavaī cites an example of bāla, from vyavahāra point of view, bāla means a
Pravacanasāra of Kundakunda. op.cit., verse-2.11. ? Ibid, verse-2.12, p. 131.
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