Introduction to Jainism and its Culture

Author(s): Balbhadra Jain
Publisher: Kundkund Gyanpith Indore

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As compared to these a slightly evolved state of beings is that of beings having two sense organs, those of touch and taste. These include conch-shell, kaudi (a type of small shells), oysters, and many other members of the phylum Molusca; a variety of worms including leech.
There are some beings that have three sense organs. These are the organs of touch, taste, and smell. These include ant, louse, bedbug, scorpion, etc. The four-sensed beings have the sense organs of touch, taste, smell, and seeing. These include gadfly, mosquito, housefly, bumblebee, wasp, moth, etc.
All these aforesaid beings having one to four sense organs are insentient beings. The five-sensed beings have five sense-organs, those of touch, taste, smell, seeing, and hearing. Out of these some are sentient and others insentient. The sentient ones have the capacity to think and imagine. The five-sensed beings are: aquatic animals including fish, tortoise, and crocodile; land animals including horse, dog and cat; birds including crow, vulture, and pigeon; andaja or born from an egg, as are birds and reptiles; jarāyuja or placental, such as man; potaja or born as fully formed infants, as are elephants; divine beings, and hell-beings.
All these are various states of beings. All beings strive for happiness and fear pain. All beings strive for life and fear death. All beings desire a life filled with happiness. When a being suffers excessive and intolerable pain it desires to die as well. Although it is aware that death is its destruction, it still wants to remove pain even by dying. Thus its prime goal is to remove misery any way. Beings have one to four sense organs and insentient five-sensed beings are devoid of the faculty of thinking. Even their knowledge is at comparatively lower level of development. Therefore, these beings are incapable of conceiving about or working for happiness or a happy life. The sentient beings although have a desire for happiness, they do not know how to attain it. All beings suffer misery under compulsion, no one wants to do so of its own volition.
In mundane existence there is nothing like only and complete happiness; misery is ever present. However, a being sometimes has more sorrows and at others less. In the past some one had more
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