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Biology in Jaina Treatise on Reals
and there will be no encouragement in merit-earning acts like donations, vow observance etc. It is, thus, a rule that the earned karmas are destroyed after their fruition only. However, they can be prematurely destroyed too due to prematuration causes like austerities and higher stage of meditation etc. It can be illustrated by the fact that a wet cloth, if spread open in the sun, dries up quickly in contrast to keeping it non-spread. Thus, the premature fruition of lifespan karma is called shortened, untimely or reducible death.
Supplementary Notes
The commentary deals with the following points :
The different terms used in the aphorism 2.53 have been properly
1.
(a)
defined.
(b)
The utility of the terms 'ultimate' and 'superior' occurring together has been justified to refute some cases of biographical literature.
(c) The possibility of reducibility of life-span has been elaborated on the basis of prematuration causes as in the case of ripening of fruits or medical treatment of existing or dormant diseases. There is no flaw of loss of the earned karmas as they could be prematurely destroyed due to austerities etc.
2. This aphorism is the last one dealing with the types of death of the worldly living beings. It implies that there are two types of death- (i) timely or irreducible and (ii) untimely, reducible or accidental.
3. The aphorism states that (i) hellish beings (ii) celestials (ii) ultimate embodied men (iv) noble personages (v) men and animals of innumerable-year life-span and (vi) men in the land of enjoyment have timely death only. This is because they have strong and unseen force of merits or demerits for nonreducible life-span. Even the omniscients may have a non-reducible life-span of 7052 x 10" years as per both the versions. It implies that the rest of the living beings have both types of death to encourage religiosity.
4. The TSB indicates that there are innumerable-year life-spanned beings in (i) all lands of enjoyment and (ii) lands of action during the first or last three periods of descending or ascending time cycles.
5.
The TSB points out that the supeior bodied beings may have both types of life-spans. This could be shortened due to one or more of the causes like (i) poison (ii) weapons (iii) thorns (iv) fire (v) water (vi) snake-bite (vii) overeating (viii) indigestion (ix) stroke of lightening (x) hanging by ropes (xi) attack by violent animals (xii) stroke of thunderbolt (xiii-xvi) acute hunger, thirst,cold and heat.
6. The S-version of this aphorism has some modified form. It has the words with a meaning of ultimate embodied and noble personages taken separately. To avoid the flaw of non-inclusion of noble persons like Narayana Krisna and Brahmadatta and some subhumans, the word 'noble' (uttama) has been taken as an adjective in D-version. It could be eliminable altogether as the ultimate bodied beings are always
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