First Steps to Jainism Part 2

Author(s): Sancheti Asso Lal, Manakmal Bhandari
Publisher: Sancheti Trust Jodhpur

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First Steps to Jainism
(iv) ardha-naraca-samhanana-naam-karma gives a joining which is on one side like the preceding one, whilst on the other the bones are simply pressed together and nailed.
(v) kilika samhanana-naam-karma gives a weak joining by which the bones are merely pressed together and nailed.
(vi) sevarta (or chedaprstha) samhanana-naam-karma gives quite a weak joining, by which the ends of the bones only touch one another.
The samhananas play a great role in Jain dogmatics. Only the first four make meditation possible (Tattva. IX, 27), and only the best i.e. the first joining of the joints, permits the highest kind of concentration which precedes salvation.
(b) Figures--Six---
The Samsthana-naam-karma determine the stature of a being, that is to say :
(i) samacaturasra-samsthana-naani-karma causes the entire body to be symmetrically built.
(ii) nyagrodhaparimandala-samsthana-naam - karma causes the upper part of the body to be symmetrical, not the lower.
(iii) saddi-samsthana-naam-karma makes the body below the naval symmetrical and above it unsymmetrical.
(iv) kubja samsthana-naam-karma makes the body hunchbacked i.e. hands, feet, head and neck symmetrical but breast and belly unsymmetrical.
(v) vamana-samsthana-naam-karma makes the body dwarf i.e. breast and belly symmetrical, hands, feet etc. unsymmetrical.
(vi) hunda-samstbana-naam-karma makes the entire body unsymmetrical.
The conception of symmetry is explained in the following way. Imagine a man stittig in the paryanka posture i.e. crossing the legs and placing the hands over the navel. If the two knees are joined by a line and from the right shoulder to the left knee, and from the left shoulder to the right knee, and from the forehead to the hands, straight lines are drawn, one gets four lines. If these are equal to one another, symmetry is apparent, if they are not so, one of the other four samsthanas results.
Gods have only the first, infernal beings and jivas who have been produced through coagulation only the 6th figures and in the