Book Title: Introduction to Jainism and its Culture
Author(s): Balbhadra Jain
Publisher: Kundkund Gyanpith Indore

View full book text
Previous | Next

Page 35
________________ 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 18 Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334