Jain Journal 2004 07

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

Page 22

RAJJANKUMAR: LIFESCIENCEANDJAINISM
other fundamental factors of other individual's life are the combined result of four aghatin categories of karman i.c. (1) nāma-karmaṇa, (2) gotra karmaņa (3) vedaniya-karmaṇa and (4) ayusya-karmaṇa and their relevant categories".
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According to biology life means a composition of living cells which is made up of different kinds of material substances having several types of physical and chemical actions. Irrespective of this. The Jainas believe that life is not merely a composition of material substances. A non-material soul-substance ((jivästikāya) is also essential to create a living which is made by maters cell. Soul is a conscious substance, but is not considered like a physical one. It is non-material/non-physical, but is eternal too. It can neither be created nor be destroyed. A soul animates a particular organism and manifests itself in various kinds of vital functions of a jiva. According to biosciences, living organism is qualitatively distinct from non-living matter. Functioning of the former is governed by some unique biological laws. The essence of living is the set of principals determining the transmission of genetic information from one generation to the next.
Living organisms are composed of the same constituents as the rest of the earth, but it possesses, besides free will, which is the characteristics of life, all of the following attributes, such as, organization, excitability, conductivity, contractility, metabolisms, growth, reproduction. One or more of these, but not all, may be possessed also by non-living matter.
In its composition, a living organism contains no special element made up of some elements that occur naturally on the earth. Not only are these have elements a very special set, but they are combined together to make molecules more complicated than any others known in the universe1. However, Biologists do not accept that jiva depends upon a non-physical soul or spirit, but they agree that a vital force is produced by the combination of these unique molecules. The Jainas specify them in several technical names such as prāņas, paryāptis, indriyas etc. They are organised into living organisms which are not a closed systems in equilibrium, but in a steady state of interchange with the external environment maintained by continual intake of fuel and expenditure of energy.