Jaina Ontology

Author(s): K K Dixit
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 50

THE AGE OF ĀGAMAS
37
water-type just as a glass full of ants is a colony of living beings of the ant-type; in both cases the beings concerned are an amalgum of a body and a soul (the ditference between them being that the former possess just one sense-organ viz. tactile, the latter three of them viz. tactile, gustatory and olfactory, Bhagavati evinces a keen awareness of the peculiarity of the Jaina position in question and hence frequently seeks to reassure the reader that the position is nevertheless valid. 58 So whenever it undertakes a detailed description of any sort of animate activity it classifies the world of living beings into five types, viz. one-sensed, two-sensed, three-sensed, four-sensed five-sensed (the earth-bodied, water-bodied, fire-bodied, air-bodied and plant-bodied beings constituting the first type). Generally speaking, those animate activities are of five sorts, viz. (1) bodily (2) cognitive (3) emotive (4) conative (5) affective. However, quite frequently the first and the fifth are left out of account when the general qualities of a soul are being treated-while the second alone is taken into account when the matter has to be put in one word 54. These positions and attitudes are not peculiar to Bhagavati, for they also make their appearance in later texts. But what is noteworthy is the rather unconventional form in which they appear in Bhagavati (they in fact appearing here in so many forms on so many occasions). For example, we have earlier taken note of a list of 23 topics of investigation that appears in Bhagavati. Now ten of these items were later picked out to give an exhaustive account of soul, and to them were added five more which too appear in an enlarged version of the orginal list of 23. On a closer examination it seems that the present group of ten
ems and the one of five are each selfsufficient and that their juxtaposition is sheer mechanical. Thus the first group included following items : (1) Närakiya
(6) Jñana (2) Karma
(7) Sanjña (3) Leśya
(8) Sarira (4) Drsti
(9) Yoga (5) Darśana
(10) Upayoga Of these (1), (2), (8) covered bodily activities, (5), (6), (10) cognitive ones, (3), (4), (7) emotive ones, (9) conative ones. Similarly, the second group included following items :
(1) 18 vices from prāņāti pata down to mithyadarśanasalya (2) Freedom from these 18 vices
Autpattiki, Vainayiki, Karmiki, Pariņāmiki (4) Avagraha, Tha, Avāya, Dhāraņā (5) Utihāna, Karma, Bala, Virya, Puruşakāraparakrama
Of these (1), (2) covered emotional and emotion-free) activities, (3), (4) cognitive ones, (5) conative ones. The noteworthy point is that this whole