Jain Journal 2004 07

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

Page 23

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JAIN JOURNAL VOL-XXXIX, NO. 1 JULY. 2004
Carbon is the most common contents of foodstuffs. After taking meal the carbon element goes through the stomach and intestines into the blood, and from there to a muscle where it is burnt to give energy when the muscle contracts. In a couple of hours after eating, it will be breathed out of the lungs as carbon dioxide. This process is selfmaintain and is called homolysis. It is not a static-condition but considered, as a dynamic process of equilibrium.
In most parts of the body, there is a rapid turn over in many tissues and even the cells themselves are continually replaced by new ones. And yet, as all these interchanges go, the integrity of the whole organism is preserved. Thus the process of homeostasis, which consists, as it were of a continual death and rebirth, is the essential property of life. A vital force or vitality is the principle at work, which prevents the dissociation of the body in spite of continual expenditure of energy. End of vitality results in death". The Jainas declare that it a dissociation of soul from the physical body.
Paryapti, Vital Force and Jainism
Paryapti is defined as a vital-force of jiva. It appears to be the actual living material of all living organisms i.e. plants and animals. There are six kinds of paryaptis12 -1. āhāraparyāpti, 2. sariraparyāpti, 3. indriyaparyāpti, 4. ucchavāsaparyāpti, 5. bhāṣāparyāpti and 6. manaḥparyapti.
Āhāraparyāpti is that kind of vital force by which living (jīva) takes, digests, absorbs and transforms molecules of food particles khala (waste products) and rasa (molecules of nutrients or energy)13. Sariraparyapti is the vital force by which the molecules of nutrients are utilized by the jiva for the release of energy, the buildings of blood, tissue, fat, bone, marrow, semen etc.14 Indriyaparyapti is the vital force by which molecules of nutrients or rasa suitable for building of senses are taken in and provided to the proper place so that jīva can have the perceptual knowledge of the desired sense-objects by the senseorgans'. Ucchavāsaparyāpti is the vital force by which particles of respiration are taken in, oxidized for energy are leftout16. Bhāṣāparyapti, by which the jiva having taken proper particles of speech, emit them as speech". Manaḥparyapti is that kind of vital