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and ingredients of the air-oxygen, carbon-dioxide etc.—are instances of loma ahara. This type of intake is believed to be continuous and ceaseless.
'Prakṣepa āhāra'-Ingestion of nourishment through mouth is called praksepa or kavala āhāra.
Some Acāryas have explained these in a different way:
‘Praksepa āhāra' is the assimilation of the external matter after ingesting it into the gross body through the sense-organ of taste.
"Oja āhāra' is the assimilation of external matter after its intake through the sense-organs of smell, sight and sound in the gross body.
“Loma āhāra' is the assimilation of external matter after its intake through the sense-organ of touch only in the gross body.
It can be seen that whatever is the manner of intake, the significant factor about nourishment is its assimilation (absorption into the system) which is preceded by digestion and metabolic processes inside the body.
The passage which describes the manner of nourishment of all organisms in this scripture and which is repeated again and again is already given (see page no. 85). This passage is translated as....... “these organisms consume earth-bodies, water-bodies, fire-bodies, air-bodies and vegetable-bodies: depriving the life of manifold mobile and immobile organisms they render their bodies to become inanimate; these inanimate bodies which had already been taken-in by them through their senseorgan of touch, are digested, metabolised and assimilated by them."
The identical passage is repeated in all the paragraphs and applies universally to all organisms, mobile as well as immobile--in respect to their nourishment.
In the case of human beings, this passage is preceded by the following: "(the human beings) at first (i.e. at the instant of their conception) feed on the unclean, foul (substance) which is produced by the menses of the mother and the semen of the father. And afterwards
-: 100:
JAIN BIOLOGY
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