Jaina Ontology

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

Page 53

JAINA ONTOLOGY
tions that have some philosophical bearing. And in view of the utmost sanctity attached to this part of the text it will be instructive to note what it has to say in this connection. The reader's attention is here drawn to the fact that the living beings are of six types, viz. earth-bodied, water-bodied, fire-bodied, air-bodied, plant-bodied and mobile-bodied. Of course no arguments are forthcoming to corroborate the contention,
40
(C) DASAVAIKĀLIKASŪTRA
Dašavaikālikasutra too is a text almost exclusively devoted to the problems of conduct but in its chapter fourth it follows the procedure of the first adhyayana of the first śrutaskandha of Acarangasutra and draws the reader's attention to the fact that the living beings are of the above-mentioned six types.
(D) SŪTRAKṚTĀNGASŪTRA
Sutrakṛtängasūtra is a text of somewhat different sort. On the whole it is meant to train up beginners on the questions of doctrine--chiefly ethical ones. As such it sometimes raises questions of a philosophical nature. Its first śrutaskandha is older than the second one (by the way, the same is the case with Acarangasūtra), and in the first śrutaskandha one occasionally comes across a bare assertion to the effect that the living beings are of six types (it thus following the pattern of the earlier mentioned portions of Acaranga and Dašavaikālika). But in the second śrutaskandha the matter has been gone into a bit more deeply. Thus its third adhyayana undertakes an elaborate description of the life-activities mainly the nourishing process- of the different types of living beings while its fourth adhayayana emphasises in the manner of the corresponding passages of Bhagavati -- that even the one-sensed beings (i.e. the earth -, water-, fire-, air-, plantbodied beings) are capable of performing immoral acts; similarly, its seventh adhyayana argues that a soul which is static-bodied in this life can become mobile-bodied in the next though these two broad classes of beings will always remain in existence. However, Sutrakṛtānga - in both its srutaskandhas -- also contains philosophical material of another type and as a matter of fact it is on account of this that the text has so often attracted the attention of the general students of Indian philosophy. Thus here we now and then come across an account of the non-Jaina philosophical doctrines like materialist, Sankhya, Vaiseṣika, Buddhist, Vedanta etc. Of course, these doctrines are seldom mentioned by name and the wording of the concerned account is often obscure; moreover, these doctrines are almost never subjected to a criticism on philosophical grounds (objections against them being raised on ethical grounds). This severely limits the importance of this part of Sutrakṛtänga for a study like the present one which is chiefly interested in tracing the evolution of the Jaina philosophical doctrines in and for themselves.
-