________________
4. Six Groups of Souls
remind a sick person [of desirable food]; 7. to eat black radishes, ginger, sugar-cane, onions, before life has departed from them, roots, fruits, and seeds in their natural living state, 8. [and] salt of seven different kinds, still containing life. 9. [It is forbidden to use] frankincense, [to apply] vomitives, purgatives, [or] digestives, unguents, a piece of wood for the teeth and [all other kinds of] ointments and ornaments of the body. 10. All this [would be] a sin of the Free Ones, the great sages, who possess self-control and follow a wandering life, having become lightened [of the burden of sins]. 11. Wise and honest, they have rejected the influence [pouring in through the] five [organs], they are watchful concerning [those] three, [viz. mind, speech, and body], they control themselves with respect to the six [forms of life], they subdue the five [senses]. 12. [Monks who are] controlled [and] eager endure the heat in summer-time, in the cold season they go about uncovered, during the rains they live secluded. 13. In order to remove all evil, the great sages lead an active life, opposed to troubles, content without delusion, with subdued senses. 14. Having done that which is difficult to do, having forborne what is difficult to forbear, some of them [pass] to the worlds of the gods, others attain perfection unburdened [by Karman]. 15. When, through self-control and ascetic practices, they have annihilated [their] former deeds, those who protect [themselves from temptations] reach the road to perfection and make an end of existence. Thus I say.
83
4. Six Groups of Souls.
O Long-Lived One, I have heard that the Lord spoke thus: Here [follows] the chapter called "Concerning the Six Groups of Souls", propounded, well told and well proclaimed by the Monk [and] Lord Mahāvīra of the Kasyapa Gotra.
[A pupil says:] It is good for me to study [this text]. [For] studying [means] proclamation of Dharma. What then are these six Groups of Souls?
They are as follows: [souls] incorporated in earth-bodies, water-bodies, fire-bodies, wind-bodies, plant-bodies, and [spontaneously] moving bodies. Earth, (water, fire, wind,
6*
