Food And Freedom

Author(s): Paul Dundas
Publisher: Paul Dundas

Page 19

Food and Freedom
179
(praksepāhāra) is termed by the Digambaras 'morsel, mouthful nourishment' (kavalāhāra), perhaps reflecting the more austere form of eating of the Digambara ascetic. 138 Prabhācandra affirms the point made by the Svetāmbaras that āhāra means the matter which the laws of nature dictate is attracted to the body. However, this cannot mean that the kevalin specifically takes morsel nourishment when he is described as 'taking nourishment', for this would mean designating as not ‘taking nourishment' one-sensed creatures (that is, plants), egg-born creatures (that is, when actually in the egg) and the gods, none of whom, according to Digambara analysis, take morsel nourishment, as well as those animals and men who do not happen to be eating at a particular time. Particularly significant is the example of the gods, for, although they are subject to feeling-producing karma and thus might be expected, in Svetāmbara terms, to experience hunger, they do not take solid, morsel food. This is high praise indeed of the kevalin, says Prabhācandra mockingly, when feeling-producing karma does not cause the gods to eat whereas it does for the kevalin who is far superior to the gods.139 This is a rather inauspicious start to Prabhācandra's argument since he has not in any way refuted the Svetāmbara point that the meaning of āhāra is perfectly clear from the context in which it is used.
Prabhācandra then goes on to ask what could be the factors which determine that the kevalin does eat. Since the Svetāmbaras place great weight upon the authoritative means of knowledge by which they reach their conclusions, the Digambara, by adducing the Svetāmbara belief that the kevalin's eating and evacuation of food are invisible, is able to turn the tables on his opponents' view that direct perception and the Svetāmbara canon enable us to make a correct judgement in this matter, for if we understand directly through our senses that the kevalin eats, then that contradicts the canonical position that he has transcended the senses; alternatively, if it were said that our understanding comes through extrasensory means, then the holder of such a stupid view would have to be subjected to trial by ordeal.140 If, however, we infer that the kevalin eats, then what is the premise (linga) on which such an inference is based? It cannot be feeling-producing karma because this has already been ruled out by reference to the gods, nor can it be mortality because the kevalin has transcended this state, a judgement which is very revealing of the Digambara position. This last point is reinforced by the fact that the kevalin does not possess a normal audārika body of flesh and blood, as the Śvetāmbaras argue, but a 'supreme' (parama) audārika body 'which is like pure crystal, the embodiment of lustre and without the seven constituents of the human body'. Such a body, completely different from the bodies of normal creatures, cannot be said to require food for its support, when inferior beings like the gods can survive without eating. 141 In the kevalin state, absence of eating is no more noteworthy than absence of growth of hair. 142