Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

Author(s): Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

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Jain Philosophy in Historical Outline
(vāyu) have been referred to as the cause of all bodily movements. These are prāņa which controls the mechanism of respiration and vocal chord, apāna which controls the digestive faculties, vyāna which controls the muscular actions, samāna which generates heat in the body and udāna which maintains the body in general. The eaten food becomes a pulp in the stomach, and by the action of samāna wind goes to the gall bladder where it is saturated by the acid coming out from the gall bladder, and thus becomes the vital fluid which ultimately transforms into blood circulated by the heart and purified by the lungs. Thus the roots of all diseases are to be sought in the functions of wind, gall bladder and heart (respiration, growth of phlegm, etc.). These views were entertained by the Jains also.
Sixteen different diseases are mentioned in the Āyāra. They are boils, leprosy, consumption, sickness, blindness, stiffness, lameness, humpbackedness, dropsy, dumbness, apoplexy, eye-disease, trembling, crippledness, elephantiasis and diabetes. A similar list in found in Vivāgasūya 40b. “Here we come across physicians trying to practise their profession in many different ways. In this connection we may note that, as Țhāņa 427 has it, the main subjects of therapeutics are the following eight: the science of children's complaints (Kumārabhicca), the science of internal diseases (Käya-tigicchā), surgery, both small and large (Salāi and Salla-hattā), toxicology (Jangoli), psychotherapeutics (Bhūya-vijjā), the science of cautery (Kharatanta) and elexirology (Rasāyaṇa). They are nearly conform with eight parts of the so called Ayurveda.”2
Scientific Enquiries: Astronomy
Jain studies in astronomy and astral physics are recorded mainly in the Süra-pannatti and also in the Jambuddīva-pannatti. The Candapannatti, which is counted as the seventh Uvanga and which deals with the astronomical theories in terms of the moon, is completely identical in all the available manuscripts with the Sūra-pannatti. Though in its present form the former is embodied in the latter, there is reason to believe that originally the Canda-pannatti was a separate text which preceded the other one. The Sura-pannatti deals with the orbits which the sun traverses during the year, with the rising and setting of the sun, with the speed of the course of the sun through
11. 6. I 2Schübring, DJ, p. 149.