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4. Six Groups of Souls
plants), provided that they were not treated by instruments, are said to be living, containing many souls, embracing single beings.
[Plants are of many kinds], viz.: the seeds have their place at the top, at the root, at the stalk, or on the branch, [the plants] come from seeds or they coagulate. Grass and creepers, bodies for plant [-souls), with seeds, are said to be.... (etc. as above)... embracing single beings.
There are many [spontaneously] moving beings: they come from an egg, they are born fully developed (or) with a chorion, they originate in moisture [or] in sweat, they coagulate
[spontaneously), they appear from the earth or from the void. • Beings that go forward [and] backward, bend [and] strech,
cry, roam about, tremble, [or] run away, knowing how to come and how to go: 'worms and insects, bugs and ants', all beings with two, three, four, and five senses, (the lastnamed group embracing) all Shigher) animals, all hell-beings, all men [and] all gods, (that is to say], all beings of highest and of lowest rank – this sixth group of souls is the group of [spontaneously] moving (souls).
Towards these six groups of souls he should not perform any act of violence himself, nor cause it to be performed by others, nor allow others who perform it, to do so.
As long as I live I [shall] not perform (an act of violence) in [one of the) three ways, viz. with mind, speech and body, nor [shall] I cause [another person] to perform [it], nor [shall] I allow another person who performs it, to do so. [On the contrary,] I [shall] confess (such an act, and] blame [and] censure smyself when I have performed it), and abandon myself [in repentance).
I. The first great vow, o my Master, [concerns] the abstention from injuring, any [living] being. O my master, I renounce all injury against any being, be it subtle or gross, [spontaneously] moving or immovable. I [shall myself] not injure any living being, nor cause it to be injured by others, nor allow others who injure it, to do so. As long as I live, I (shall] not perform an injury against á being... (etc. as before)... [in repentance). O my Master, I have taken the first great vow, [concerning) the abstention from injuring a living being.
