Jain Journal 1967 10

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 28

70
Jainas about beings with only one organ are, in part, peculiar to themselves... We may call these elementary lives; they live and die and are born again in the same or another elementary body. These elementary lives are either gross or subtle; in the latter case, they are invisible. The last class of one-organed lives are plants; of some plants each is the body of one soul only, but of other plants each is an aggregation of embodied souls which have all functions of life, as respiration and nutrition, in common. That plants possess souls is an opinion shared by other Indian philosophers. But the Jainas have developed this theory in a remarkable way. Plants in which only one soul is embodied are always gross; they exist in the habitable parts of the world only. But those plants of which each is a colony of plant-lives may also be subtle, i.e., invisible and in that case they are distributed all over the world. These subtle plants are called nigoda; they are compound of an infinite number of souls forming a very small cluster, have respiration and nutrition in common and experience the most exquisite pains. Innumerable nigodas form a globule and with them the whole space of the world is closely packed, like a box filled with powder. The nigodas furnish the supply of souls in place of those who have reached nirvana. But an infinitesimally small fraction of one single nigoda has sufficed to replace the vacancy caused in the world by the nirvana of all the souls that have been liberated from the beginningless past down to the present. Thus it is evident that the samsara will never be empty of living beings."
JAIN JOURNAL
The karma theory is an integral part of all systems of Indian philosophy but at first sight it may appear that the karma theory is somewhat incongruous with the animistic notions of the early Jaina religion and is a later interpolation under the Brāhmaṇical influence. This, however, is not correct. According to Jacobi, the broad outlines of the karma, theory, if not all its details, must have been as old as Jainism itself and was closely and carefully interwoven with animistic notions. Besides, some of the technical terms in the karma theory have been used by the Jainas alone in their original etimological sense, which has later influenced other systems. In brief, the Jaina theory of karma is not only old, it is also original, breaking a new ground of its own. In the words of Jacobi :
"It seems so obstruce and highly artificial that one would readily believe it a later developed metaphysical doctrine which was grafted on an original religious system based on animistic notions and intent on sparing all living beings. But such a hypothesis would be in conflict with the fact that this karma theory, if not in all details, certainly in the main outlines, is acknowledged in the oldest parts of the Canon and