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Mahāvira's Words by Walther Schubring
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Not being on guard with regard to everything through not knowing: one calls this the world. In absorbing the external things ever anew, (crooked in the
spiritual attitude [and]) without care he may remain living in his house. § [4.] Truly, I say: this (plant being] is part of becoming , our [human being] is part of becoming; the one is part of growing, the other is part of growing; this is full of life, that is full of life; this perishes when it is cut off, that the same; this accumulates matter around it, that the same; this is transitory, without duration, suffers increase and decrease, and that the same.* [5.] Truly, I say: The following kinds are animals which move freely. They crawl out of the egg, they are born ready, they are born with the membrane of the egg; they originate in moisture, in sweat, through coagulation of the surrounding substance]; [they appear] out of the womb of the earth (or) out of nothing.23 (71)
One calls this24 the journey through the form of existences of indolent, ignorant ones. Each is thinking about and observing his own complete liberation
(For all lower animals, all plants, all higher beings, all other beingss the incomplete liberation (is) displeasing), a great fear, a suffering, so I say. Beings tremble [out of fear] from all directions and in all directions. ([This means, indeed:) 'Everywhere, in many (individual] cases [beings] who themselves feel torment cause torment. Beings abide in (many) individ
ual abodes'.) $ (Truly, I say: some kill (an animal] for the sake of the [whole) body, some slay [an animal] for th sake of the hide, the flesh, the blood, the heart, the gall, the fat, the tail (feathers), the tail [hair), the tail, a horn, a tusk, an incisor tooth, a fang, a claw,
5,5
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23 Later (Jaina) dogmatics knows this last kind of origination (the so-called manifestation, only for gods and hell beings. The translation of the second last (ubbhiya) being is based on the Balavabodha in Gujarāti, which perhaps brings into it a modern idea. The interpretation of the old commentaries is not evident. The translation "originating out of shoots of a plant" is possible, but unlikely. (The Curni 36,2 explains ubbhiya as: muttimā (khanjarida)di. Śil. on sūtra 48 says: udbhedanam udbhittato jātā udbhijā --- prsódarâditvād da-lopahpatanga-khanjarīta-pāriplavadayah (WB).)
24 The reason for the link: the apparent context (5,24: "the prudent ones ... do not desire ...").
25 This translation is according to the stanza quoted by he the commentator śīl., I 80, 15 of the Calcutta edition: prānā dvi-tri-catuh-proktā, bhūtās tu taravah smrtāḥ, jivāḥ pancêndriyāḥ prokrāh, sesah sattvā udiritāh. (Malayagiri's Prajnāpanā-tīkā 305b is insignificantly different.) On p. 221, 13 Sil., nevertheless, explains the four words as being synonymous.
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