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difficult situation and unfavorable circumstances where the cell can't divide there is formation of almost 500 spores within the single cell, which disperse in different direction. These spores again under favorable circumstances reproduce by division. All one celled being like viruses, bacteria, fungi etc. reproduce as mentioned above. According to Jaina philosophy this type of reproduction can be termed as agglutination.
5. Agglutination in Plant-Kingdom
In this point, we will discuss, whether the whole plant-kingdom can be related with agglutination.
Plant-kingdom is considered at great length in the ancient Jaina texts. This special treatment is given due to their visibility to naked eye, there usefulness to human and subhuman species and the plants possess observable growth, reproduction and life-cycle.
Jaina texts enumerates 10 lakh yonis of pratyeka-vanaspati and 14 lakh yonis of sadhāranavanaspati. According to them, all these vanaspatis reproduce themselves by agglutination.
Botanists divide plant-kingdom into flowering plants and non-flowering plants. In some of the flowering plants there are male and female pollens. With their close contact, seeds are produced. But all seeds do not grow into plants. Botanists have observed that some flowering plants are only male-plants while some are only female-plants. Secondly, in flowering and nonflowering plants, we can reproduce the species by planting a branch, stem etc. Such type of plants can be called agglutinated plants.
The term 'clone' is derived from the Greek word denoting trunk' or 'branch', referring the process whereby a new plant can be created from a twig. The modern method of tissue culture in which saplings are produced by using a fragment of plant, can be designated as agglutination. In Botany, 'fragmentation' is defined in the following manner
Fragmentation is a form of asexual reproduction, where a new organism grows from a fragment of the parent. Fragmentation is seen in fungi and some plants.
The Ardhamāgadhi canon Sūtrakstānga, enumerates the water-plants as avaka, panaka,
śaivāla, kalaṁbuka, hada, kaseruka etc. We can say that these aqua plants are reproduced by fragmentation. Daśavaikālika mentions a list of plants as aggaabīyā, mūlabīyā, porabīyā,
khandhabiya and so on." These are certainly the examples of fragmentation. Since fragmentation is a variety of asexual reproduction, we can designate these plants as 'agglutinated'.
In the botanical texts, the second variety of asexual reproduction is apomixis. Apomixis in plants is the formation of a new sporophyte without fertilization. It is important in ferns and in flowering plants. It means, the flowering plants in which reproduction is seen by apomixis can be called agglutinated plants. For example, some of the fig trees bear flowers having only female pollens, still figs are produced.
In nutshell, we can say that in Jaina texts, the whole plant-kingdom is brought under agglutination, but botanically it is not totally true. In botanical texts it is noted that in some of the most undeveloped species of plants like fungus and algae, the sexual and asexual production is
seen.
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