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5. SUDHARMAN — REGARDING SIMILARITY
OF THE OTHER LIFE TO THIS ONE
Hearing that all these bad become monks Sudbarmă too decided to approach Lord Mahā vīra respectfully. As he approached, the Lord addressed him by his name and gotra as Sudharma Agniveśyāyana, and told him about the doubt in his mind. It is said in the Veda that after death a man remains a man and animals continue as animals (puruṣo mộtaḥ san puruşatvam eva’snute, pašavah pasutvam). Further, it is also said that he who is cremated along with the faces is reborn a jackal (śrgālo vai eșa jāyate yaḥ sapuriso dalyate). Owing to such conflicting statements Sudharmă had a doubt whether man's condition in the other world or life is similar to that in this world or dissimilar to it. But this was so because he did not understand the true meaning of the Vedic statements which Mahāvīra explained to him at the end of the discussion (1770-2).
Sudharma's line of argument is that the effect is in agreement with the cause, e. g. barley-sprout with the barley-seed. This-worldly existence or life is the cause of another birth which must, therefore, be similar to it. Hence a man must be reborn as a man only and so on (1773). : But this is not so. There is no universal rule that the effect must be in agreement with the cause, for Sara springs even from Sriga and a kind of grass Bhūtrņaka springs out of it only when it is besmeared with Sarşapa (mustard). Dūrvá grass springs from the hairs of cattle and sheep. Thus Vřkşayurveda (Botany) tells us that diverse herbs spring from the combination of different substances. Again in Yoniprābhsta where these is a description of yonis (wombs, sources), we can see that diverse things like serpent, lion, etc. and jewels, gold, etc. are produced out of the combination of a number
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