On Term Antahsamjna

Author(s): A Wezler
Publisher: A Wezler

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ABORI: R. G. Bhandarkar 150th Birth-Anniversary Volume
It should not, however, be forgotten that there is significant evidence 63a to warrant the conclusion that the idea of the plants' ekendriyatva was not specifically Jinistic, but rather a popular belief (though apparently in a comparatively early period of Indian thought ). Therefore, one has equally to reckon with the possibility that it is this belief, be it popular or not, of which the term antaḥsamjna is but another expression, and that the connection with Mbh. XII 177 is, if at all existent, only a very distant one.
2. 5. Returning now to the verse Manu 1. 49. itself, one question already raised above ( $2.3) has to be taken up again for closer examination, viz. whether the conception of the internal consciousness” of plants is perhaps directly connected with the idea of their “ being wrapped by tamas" (tamasā ... vestitah ). It is admittedly rather tempting to answer it in the positive; on second thoughts, however, one cannot help realizing that this assumption entails further problems: There is no evidence in extant Samkhya texts that upholders of this school of thought were of the opinion that the various types of living beings differ from each other with regard to the morphological or structural distribution of the three guņas in their organism; instead what is repeatedly, almost stereotypically recurred to is the well-known idea of the relative quantitive difference among the constituents of which a living being - or one of its organs ---64 is considered to be made.
Yet, the gaze should not, of course, be directed only to Sāmkhya texts in the strict sense of the word. It might well be rewarding to have a look at other sources, too. It is the Purānas which then come first to one's mind. For, it has been shown by P. Hacker in his meticulous study 65 of the composition of the first Adhyāya of the Manusmrti, that its compiler to a large extent used materials found in the Purāṇas also, viz. an account of cosmogony which was
( Continued from the last page) above all because the remark in the Bhagya on TS 2. 25 anyatha hy uharabhayamaithunaparigrahasa mjñübhiḥ sarva epa jivah samjiina iti clearly shows that " volitional and involuntary/unintentional mental acts" are considered to be common to all living beings. W. Schubriog (Die Lehre der Jainas..., Berlin/Leipzig 1935, p. 101 = $ 71 ) equates samjna to " Vernunft".
63a. Cf. L. Schmithaugen's article "Buddhismus und Nature" (in : Die Verant. wortung des Mensoben für eine bewoonbare Welt im Christentum, Hinduismus und Buddhis. mus, hrg. v. R. Panikkar u. W. Strulz, Freiburg/Bagel/Wien 1985), p. 123 and fn. 152.
64. See e. g. fn. 35.
65. "Two Accounts of Cognogony" in: Jñanamuktä vali. Commemoration Volume in Honour of Joh. Nobel, ed. by C. Vogel, New Delhi 1963, pp. 77-91 (= Kleine Schriften, hrg. v. L. Sebmithausen, Wiesbaden 1978, pp. 389-403). This article — as well as that mentioned in fa, 69 — has been ignored by J. W. Laino ("The Creation Account in Manu. smrti" in: ABORI Vol. LXII (1981), pp. 157-168, muoh to his own disadvantage.