Jaina Biology

Author(s): J C Sikdar
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 39

Third Section
It appears from the study of the organization of bodies of plants and animals, from the finest plants to higher plants and from the finest earth quadrates to man as revealed in the Jaina Agamas that the bodies of all plants and animals are composed of cells and tissues.2 But there is found no clear analytical study of cells and tissues of plants and animals in Jaina Biology as they are treated in modern Biology. New cells can come into being only by division of previously existing cells.3 According to modern Biology, "the cell is the fundamental unit of both function and structure-the fundamental unit that shows all the characteristics of living things."4
Cells and Tissues
Cells:
In the simplest plants and animals all of the Vital force (paryapti ) is found within a single celled body, e.g. worm (Krmi )5 like a protozoa. These organisms may be considered to be unicellular with bodies not divided into cells. Earth quadrates, plant bacterias and two-sensed worms, etc., come under this unicellular category. They may have a 1. Abbuya (?), Tandulaveyaliya, 2. p. 6.
It is also suggestive from the reference to lakhs of pores in the skin of the body. that there are cells in the body of man and other vertebrates, Ibid., 2. p. 6.
2. Pes (?). Tandulaveyāliya, 2, p. 6.
Pesi (tissue) is made of arbudas (cells).
7.
3. A single fertilized egg (kalala) develops gradually into a many-celled or fivecelled embryo (Panca Pindas) by the process of cleavage, indicating that the egg cell splits or divides. Out of five piņḍas arms, legs and head come into being.; Tandilaveyaliya,2, p. 6.
4. Biology, p. 35.
5. Uttaradhyayana Sutra, 36.128.
6. Finest earth quadrates, plant bacteria and wo: ms are the examples of unicellular
beings.
"Pudhavi ya au agani ya vāū ".. I
Sūtrakṛtānga, Śrutaskandha I, Adhyayana 7, Sûtra 1
Bhagavati Sūtra 31.1.844; Uttaradhyayana Sūtra 36. Paṇṇavana, Ekendriyajivapaṇṇavana, 19, p. 122. Gommatasära (Jiva ). V. 201.
8. Suksma vanaspati (Subtile plant) of one class may be indentical with bacteria of modern Biology., See Uttaradhyayana, 36.92.
Panṇavanā, Vanaspatikāyājivaprajñāpana 35.
9. Uttaradhyayana Sutra, 36.128.