________________
Lord Mahavira
21
11.
wind. Earth, &c. regarded as the abode of live is called earth-body, &c. These bodies are only perceptible when an infinite number of them is united in one place. The earth-lives, &c., possess only one organ, that of feeling; they have undeveloped (avvakta) intellect and feelings (vedana, but no limbs, &c. The doctrines about these elementary lives are laid down in Bhadrabahu's Niryukti of our Sutra, and are commented upon in Silanka's great commentary of it. They are very abstruse, and deal in the most minute distinctions, which baffle our comprehension. Ikk attham. The commentators think this to be a reference to the sentence, For the sake of the splendour, &c. It would be more natural to connect it with the foregoing sentence; the meaning is, For bondage; &c., men commit violence,
though they believe it to be for the happiness of this life. 12. The water-lives which are treated of in this lesson are, as is the case with all
elementary lives, divided into three classes : the sentient, the senseless, and the mixed. Only that water which is the abode of senseless water-lives may be used. Therefore water is to be strained before use, because the senseless lives only are
belived to remain in water after that process. 13. The fire-bodies live not longer than three days. 14. Damda.
The discussion of the 'wind-bodies', which should follow that of the fire-bodies, is postponed for two lessons in which the vegetable and animal world is treated of. The reason for this interruption of the line of exposition is, as the commentators state, that the nature of wind, because of its invisibleness, is open to doubts, whilst plants and animals are admitted by all to be living beings, and are, therefore, the best support of the hylozoistical theory. That wind was not readily admitted by the ancient Indians to be a peculiar substance may still be recognised in the philosophical Sutras of the Brahmans. For there it was thought necessary to discuss at length the proofs for the existence of a peculiar substance, wind. It should be remarked that wind was never identified with air, and that the Jainas had not yet separated air from space. The plants know the seasons, for they sprout at the proper time, the Asoka buds and blooms when touched by the foot of well-attired girl, and the Vakula when watered with wine; the seed grows always upwards : all this would not happen if the plants had no knowledge of the circumstances about them. Such is the reasoning of the commentators. The word after bones (atthie) is (atthimimgae, for which buffaloes, boars, &c. are killed, as the commentator states. I do not know the meaning of this word which is rendered asthiminga.
The sketch of Mahâvîra's life provided in this section of Acaranga (1st Anga) was developed into a biography in the Kalpa Sutra by Bhadrabahu (tr. H.
Jacobi, Jain Sutras, Part II, SBE XXII, 1884) 18. Or manahparyaya. 19. Ct. Kalpa Sutra, 117. 20. Month of May 21. Ujjupaliya in Prakrit. 22. Or, a temple called Vijayavartta.
Nivvane or nevvane; it may also be an adjeetive, belonging to nirvana. This is of course not the final nirvana, which is reached at the dissolution of the body, but
that state which the orthodox philosophers call jivanmukti. 24. There are five clauses to each Vrata.
16.
17.
