Gommatasara Jiva Kanda

Author(s): Nemichandra Siddhant Chakravarti, J L Jaini
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

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One-souled, including Host-one-souled, and Non-host-one-souled
... 10,00,000 Two-sensed beings
2,00,000 Three-sensed ,
... 2,00,000 Four sensed ,
... 2,00,000 Five-sensed Sub-human
or 4,00,000 Hellish
... 4,00,000 Celestial
... 4,00,000 Human
... 14,00,000
Total ... 84,00,000 II.--Márganá (Soul-Quest). In what different ways we search for a mundane soul? We can do so in no less than 14 different ways.
1. Four conditions of Existence (Gati).
We may see whether it is a human, or a sub-human soul on earth; or it is a non-human soul above or under the earth. These latter are the celestial and hellish beings. All ancient systems of thought posited their existence. We cannot see them today. But there is nothing inherently impossible in the conception of these forms of living beings, who live, think, and feel and can change their bodies at will, as described by Milton in his “Paradise Lost." This Quest may be called Condition of Existence (Gati).
2.-Five Senses (Indriya). The 5 senses give us another kind of Quest, called the SenseQuest.
3.-Six Embodiments (Káya). The different kinds of embodiments of immobile and mobile souls furnish another kind of Quest. It is open to observation that the body of a vegetable and the body of a man are radically different. Ultimately as matter, they may be, and are the same. But their difference is equally marked. Their constitution and composition are different. Their Chemical characteristics vary. They occupy obviously different places in the whole range of living beings. It is on this basis that people are split up into vegetarians and non-Vegetarians. Vegetarians give up taking lives higher than non-vegetables, because animals are more evolved and their bodies approximate our own bodies more than the bodies of vegetables do.