Defiition of Living in Jain Cannons An Evaluation

Author(s): N L Jain
Publisher: Z_Umravkunvarji_Diksha_Swarna_Jayanti_Smruti_Granth_012035.pdf

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Definition of the Living in Jaipa Connons : An Evaluation / 363
life. Food causes the (ii) body to develop. Due to this (iii) physical and conceptual senses develop gradually. When senses develop, (iv) respiration (v) speech and (iv) mind or brain also appear. Those living ones having mind are called fully developed. Otherwise, they are called undeveloped. It is assumed that all these six stages start nucleating simultaneously, but they develop in a sequence in about 48 minutes. These six stages are known as Paryaptis or completions. It is also said that paryaptis are causes of pranas. Thus, there are six of them namely food, body, senses, respiration, speech and mind-covering each of the above stages. It is seen that these six ones correspond to nine pranas as shown in the Table-4 The prana of age or duration may be called the resultant of these completions. Like the Pranas, the lowest living ones have four completions in appearance. Higher ones show all the six.
Table-4. Paryaptis and Pranas Paryaptis
Pranas 1. Food 2. Body
1. Physical 3. Senses
2. Sense of touch 3. Sense of Taste 4. Sense of smell 5. Sense of Sight
6. Sense of hearing 4. Respiration
7. Respiration 5. Speech
8. Vocal strength 6. Mind
9. Mental strength
10. Age or Duration Minimum Paryaptis 4.
Minimum Prapas 4 It may be pointed out that though the concept of Pranas is traceable in old literature, that of paryaptis is not so found there despite this being as one of the physique making Karma. This, however, has a variety of respiration but no pranas. One has, therefore, to look into the origin of this concept. Akalanka 58 has equated the pranas with respiration. While differentiating the prana and paryapti, he has mentioned that paryapti is supra-sensual and imperceptible to the sense of touch and hearing in contrast to pranas. This suggests that pranas are physical and functional in nature and not a form of mysterious life force as suggested by Sikdar.59 He has called paryapti also as a vital force or actual living material consisting of many substances nearing protoplasmic type causing the capacity to develop various pranas. If both of these terms are described in terms of unique mysterious forces, it will be difficult to explain them in current terms. Moreover, two forces for the same purpose seem to be superfluous. Secondly,
Th11 diat. संसार समुद्र में धर्म ही दीप है
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