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Gommatsarà, Jiva-kand
129 The following points as to the soul-classes may be explained for the reader who is familiar with the technicalities of Jainism
The Universe is 14 Rajus high, 7 Rajus at the base, with a thickness which at the base is 7 Rajus, then gradually decreases to one Raju at a height of 7 Rajus, i.e. at the Middle of the Universe, where the Middle World, i.e. the region of the human and subhuman beings, is situated. Then it gradually grows to a thickness of 5 Rajus at the point where the sixth Heaven ends, and which marks the Middle of the Upper World, or the region of heavenly beings; finally it gradually decreases to a thickness of one Raju at the top of the Universe, i.e. 14 Rajus high above the base, 7 Rajus high above the Middle World, and 34 Rajus high above the sixth Heaven. It is here, that the Siddha Kșetra, or the Region of the eternally liberated souls is situated. This is at the top of the Universe. (See diagram at the end of this Book, p. 139).
“Nigoda” beings are of two kinds, fine and gross. Fine Nigoda living beings exist everywhere in the Universe, from the nethermost hell to the highest region of the eternally liberated souls. They are one-sensed, both developable and undevelopabie, take birth and die 18 times in the short interval of time taken by one pulse-beat of an average human being. Of course, being souls, they have knowledge, but this knowledge, preceded by its conation, is limited to the sense of touch. These Nigoda souls are neither earth-bodied, water-bodied, fire-bodied, nor air-bodied. They belong to the vegetable sub-classes of the immobile class of souls. They have one body, occupied by many souls which are born, which live, and which die together.
These group-souls are of two kinds :
(1) Those who have never left Nigoda. These are called Nitya Nigoda, ever-one-body-many-souled.
(2) Those who left Nigoda and became embodied in higher forms of soulclasses, but have come down to Nigoda once more. These are called Itara Nigoda, or Chaturgati Nigoda, one-body many-souled.
These two are also called Sádhárana, or “Common” or group-soulclasses of vegetables.
Other vegetables have one body and one soul only. They are called individual-souled or individual (Pratyeka) vegetables. These are always gross, and never fine. But these again may or may not have parasites or hosts. Thus there are two kinds :
(1) Sapratișthita, or Host-one-souled vegetables.
(2) Apratişthita, or Non-host-one-souled vegetables. Each one of these two being either a Trunk, Creeper, Plant, Tree, or Root, there are 10 calsses of these individual-souled-vegetables, so-called in contrast to common or group-souled vegetables.
The Jaina conception of the Middle World is that it is entirely confined to the one Raju square of the layer of the Mobile Channel (Trasa Nadi), at a height of 7 Rajus from the base of the Universe.
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