Food And Freedom

Author(s): Paul Dundas
Publisher: Paul Dundas

Page 16

176
Paul Dundas
There are two basic factors which ensure that the kevalin can exist for a considerable period of time: life karma which determines the length of his life, and the intake of food; his energy, state of bliss etc. are irrelevant. "12 What, then, is the nature of the food that the kevalin takes? The Svetāmbara polemicists give this some consideration since there is a possible ambiguity involved, the term at issue being āhāra, literally 'taking to (oneself)' which can most appropriately be considered as 'nourishment'. The canon tells us that all soul 'take nourishment' (āhāriņah) for they are all subject to a particular law of nature whereby material particles are attracted to the soul and transformed into nourishment in order to build up a physical body.113 The Svetāmbaras divide this matter into three types: ojas, the prebirth nourishment taken in the womb which moulds the audārika body; loman, matter which is taken in through the pores of the skin after the formation of the audārika body, and prakṣepa, solid food, so called because it is 'deposited' (pra-kşip) in the mouth and which is the only one of the three which is visible to the ordinary human eye. 114 Now there are traditional statements which say that all creatures, from one-sensed up to the kevalin, are continually taking nourishment;115 that does not mean, however, that the kevalin is therefore literally the same as onesensed creatures or, alternatively, that he is continually eating, but rather that there are two processes at work, the continual influx of matter through the pores and also the intermittent taking of solid food.116 The Śvetāmbaras insist that a knowledge of the conventional meaning of words must make it clear that when the term āhāra is used in the context of the debate about the kevalin eating, it must refer to prakṣepa nourishment and not to the matter which is attracted to the body."17
If it be accepted that it is necessary for the kevalin to take food, then the status of hunger (kşudh, bubhuksā) by which the body signals its need to eat must be assessed. The obvious point the Svetāmbaras can make is the presence of hunger in the traditional list of afflictions to which the traditional kevalin is still subject. 118 As we have seen, these are experienced for various reasons, some occurring prior to the attainment of omniscience and disappearing when the harming karmas are destroyed, others, such as hunger, continuing during the kevalin state as a consequence of feeling-producing karma. But, since the Digambaras reject the Svetāmbara canon and manipulate the sense of TS 9.11, this cannot be a compelling argument in the debate. Nonetheless, the Svetāmbaras feel perfectly capable of demonstrating by other means that hunger is not something which militates against the kevalin's state of omniscience and, in particular, that it does not disturb his bliss (sukha). The feelingproducing karma to which the kevalin is still subject gives rise to a variety of sensations, both pleasant and unpleasant, such as hunger, but the experience of unpleasant feelings which continues to the end of the thirteenth stage does not mean that the kevalin is in a state of imperfection or unhappiness (duḥkha),