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Understandably there is no mention of the denizens of hell or heaven in Biology. Scriptures, on the other hand, give much detailed description of these two ultraterrestrial beings which are already given earlier. We do not think it necessary to elaborate on them in this section.
NUTRITION
Nutrition is defined as receiving of nourishment. Every living organism must receive nourishment to survive. Nutrition
(a) supplies its needs of energy for its day-to-day activities;
(b) makes good the wear and tear;
(c) adds to the protoplasm, the material necessary for growth. A properly adequate nourishment must include: carbohydrates, proteins and fats: water, vitamins and minerals.
These are referred to as Nutrients. Water and mineral salts are inorganic and the rest are organic. Water, vitamins and salts are simple and are absorbed without digestion while the others are complex and need digestion before they can be absorbed. These are in brief the known facts proved by science.
Now let us see what scriptures say about nutrition.
The subject of nutrition of living organisms is not discussed either in Prajñāpana Sutra or Uttrādhyayang Sutra. In Sutrakrtặnga Sutra, the title of chapter 3 is “knowledge of food: and in each paragraph there is a passage (which is repeated) dealing with the nutrition of living organisms. The passage is: “These living organisms (plants which grow from Earth) are nourished by the fluids from the earth (nutrients drawn from the earth) which is the origin (birth places) of many living organisms; they consume the bodies of the earth-bodied, water-bodied, fire-bodied, air-bodied organisms and plants as well as the bodies of the mobile organisms (trasa prāna śarīra); they render the manifold immobile and mobile organisms inanimate by depriving them of life; the inanimate bodies of these manifold organisms, consumed now or before—at the time of their birth—or absorbed by their rind and which were already added to
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