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Jainism : Through Science 160 veins going downwards from the navel (adhogämini) 160 veins going oblique on both sides of the navel (tiryaggâmini) 160 veins going downwards to anus (adhogamini guda pravista) 025 veins possessing mucus or cough (śleşmadhärini) 025 veins possessing bile (pittadhariņi) 010 veins possessing semen (sukradhärini)
The speciality of the yoni (female organ) has been described in the ninth chapter of the Pannavana-suttam' and in the third chapter of the Thananga-Suttam. It is of three types : (1) kūrmonnata, (2) sankhåvarta and (3) vansipatra. The terms denoting these three types of yoni are descrptive and self-explanatory. The term kurmonnata suggests its tortoise like curve, the term sankhavarta suggests its conch like coiled shape and the term vansipatra suggests its resemblance to bamboo leaf.
The kürmonnatä yonis give birth to great personalities such as Tirthankaras, Cakravartis and Vasudevas. Striratna (Chief queen of Cakravarti) has invariably the sankhavarta yoni. Many living beings descend to this yoni but they invariably die before their actual birth. That is, none is born from this yoni. Acarya Malayagiri records an old view that Striratna's embryo gets destroyed on account of excessive heat of her sex passion. (prajnäpana-tika, folio 228 A). Generally women have yonis of varisipatra.
We find in the Bhagavati-sutra (sataka 2, uddeśaka 5), the Pravacana-säroddhāra (p. 296) and the Tandulaveyalliya-payanna that on account of gaseous trouble or if some devil makes the embryo stable, it could live for 12 years at the most. After that period the embryo dies or takes a birth through a vulva.8
On account of sinful actions of previous births one could live as an embryo for a maximum period of 24 years by descending again to the same embryo after the first twelve years.' In Jaina treatises, technically it is called kaya-sthiti of embryo.
Tandulaveyaliya and Vicara-ratnäkara of Sri Kirtivijay Upādhyāya describes the developing process of human embryo during different months of pregnancy.10 In the first week of pregnancy sperms and blood combine to form a liquid solution and in the second week
