Jaina Ontology

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

Page 66

THE AGE OF AOAMAS
of living beings have been taken up one by one and each studied in terms of the 10 items in question--a procedure reminiscent of the later authors' treatment of 14 jīvasthānas in terms of 14 märgaņāsthānas. All the 10 items in question appear in the later list of 20 mārgaņāsthānas (and only one viz. upayoga is absent in the later list of 14 märganāsthānas). This confirms the supposition that in the body of Prajñāpanā the discussions conducted in terms of 20 mārgaņāsthānas are a later interpolation; for otherwise the present chapter should have spoken of 20 rather than 10 items.
Lastly, we take up the information regarding the living world contained in the chapter 5th (viz. Višeșapada) 73. Here an enumeration has been made of the counts on which two souls might be compared with each other, and the following list of eight items was drawn up in this connection :
(i) being a substance (ii) possessing pradeśas (iii) possessing a size (iv) possessing a duration (v) possessing a physical property (vi) possessing jñāna (vii) possessing ajñāna (viii) possessing darśana;
(in the item (v) the physical property concerned is the property of the body possessed by a soul).
Let us recall that the corresponding list in the case of physical bodies consisted of the first five of these items; and the present list incidentally indicates that a soul's cognitive capacities are considered to be its most characteristic capacities. Any way, two souls must be equivalent in respect of being a substance and in respect of possessing so many pradeśas, but they might differ in respect of possessing bodily size, life-duration and cognitive capacity. Again, the last difference can occur in all the six possible ways, the first two in these minus the two that involve the number ananta. But in this part of the discussion Prajñāpanā does not rest content with saying this much, for here the 24 types of living beings have been taken up one by one and in each case it has been considered as to how the remaining two types of differences occur in company with the maximum bodily size, minimum bodily size, intermediate bodily size, how they do so in company with the maximum life-ducation, minimum life-duration, intermediate life-duration, how they do so in company with the maximum cognitive capacities, minimum cognitive capacities, intermediate cognitive capacities. In this connection much information about the possible bodily size, the possible life-duration and the possible cognitive capacities of the different classes of living beings has already been presupposed).