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Jaina Biology
(micro-organisms ) (with it ), ( while ) when one Nigoda is born, there is the birth of infinite Nigodas there."34
In the next stage it is suggestive that before the supply of organic substances was exhausted, the heterotrops (some sūkşma Nigodas) evolve further and become autotrophs35 (bacteria samvavahāraräsis), which are able to make their own organic molecules by chemosynthesis or photosynthesis36 as is suggested by the reference to sevāla, and green plants in summer that many Usnayonika beings (plant bacteria ?) get generated as plant-bodied beings (vanaspatikāyikas ) in certain numbers, and they increase and decrease also in certain numbers and they are born again, for this reason many plants, having leaves, flowers and fruits, remain (or look ) green and shining in summer season.37
Modern Biology explains this evolution of heterotrops into autotrophs in this manner : “An organism might acquire by successive mutations, the enzymes needed to synthesize complex from simple substances, in reverse order to the sequence in which they are normally used.”38
"When, by other series of mutations, the organism was finally able to synthesize all of its requirements from simple inorganic substances, as the green plants cao, it would be an autotroph'' 39"And once the first simple autotrophs had evolved, the way was clear for the evolution of the vast variety of green plants, bacteria, molds and animals that inhabit the world”.40
It is suggestive from these considerations of the world of life thai the origin of life, as an orderly natural event on this plan was possible, although the Jainācāryas have worked out a theory of a sort of gradual evolving life - forms according to their metaphysical belief that all life
34. Jatthekka marai jivo tattha du maranaṁ have anaṁtānam
Vakkami jattha ekko vakkamaņam tatthanamtāna í," Ibid, 193. 35. "Sijjhanti jattiya kira iha samvavahärarasimjjão Inti anaivanassaimajjao tattiya
tammi /" Prajñapanavịtti, vide Lokaprakása, 4.30, p. 328. 36. Green algae, etc. can make their photosynthesis, sevāla, (algae, etc., are men
tioned in the Sūtrakrtānga II. 3. 54. 37. Bhagavati Sutra 7.3.275. 38. Biology, p. 522. 39. Ibid, p. 523. 40. Biology, p. 523.
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