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more akin to the kārmaņa śarira of the Jainas than to their taijaşa śarira. The taijaşa body of the Jainas is neither a necessary link between the kārmana and the audārika nor is in any way functionally instrumental in evolving the latter from the former. The taijaşa śarira is a unique conception among the Jainas and has not its parallel in the system of the Vedic thought.
The ultimate material basis for the body of an animal is to be traced in the "cytula" or the “stem-cell”, which again is the result of the combination of two separate cells viz : the male spermatozvon and the female ovum. The question arises how the two parent cells which consist in protoplasmic matter give rise to a body with its varied limbs and sub-limbs. This is the fundamental and the most baffling problem in biology.
To say that the germ plasu has capacities and the complexities to develop the parts of an organism is almost similar to the doctrine of kārmaņa śrira which is no more than a collection of potential forces working out the gross body of an animal. The Jaina doctrine may be presented as not only not to contradict any of the scientific standpoints but to throw light on many of the dark and as yet unexplained problems of Biology. Take for instance, the germ-plasm itself. Observation and experiment have shown that it is not an absolutely inert dead matter. Biology has been forced to admit that the germ-plasm has rudiments of life in it. But definite manners of operation and operation towards a definite end require more than life for their guidance. The millions of male ciliated cells, for instance, pressing round the ovum are all living substances ; how is it that only one out of these millions penetrates to the nucleus of the ovum in order that the two sexual cells of both parents may coalesce into the formation of the impregnated egg-cell, i e., the individual stem cell or the "cytula", as it has been called ? Attempts have been made to account for this coalesecnce of the nuclei of the spermatozoon and the ovum by saying that they are drawn together by “a mysterious force", by attributing to them "a chemical sense activity", by supposing that the two parent cell nuclei approach each other guided by an instinct of sensitive perception akin to smell”, by ascribing to the nuclei, a sort of mutual amorous attraction "a kind of erotic chemicotrophism". These are at best figurative expressions concealing the admission that the fact of coalescence of the parent cells is inexplicable even on the hypothesis of life. Jaina philosophers on the contrary say that the joining of the parental nuclei is not a fortuitous event; the coalescence is effected by the
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