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OUTLINES OF JAINISM
II. KINDS AND QUALITIES OF SOUL Souls are of two kinds according to the bodies which they inhabit.
A. Sthāvara souls, literally “immobile” souls, but probably rather souls with hardly more than a kind of tactile perception. These are of five kinds
(1) Souls of mineral bodies, e.g. stones in a quarry, diamond or coal in a mine, etc. It includes only what has the capacity of growing.
(2) Souls of water. Modern science has demonstrated the wonderful living organisms in a drop of water. It is interesting to remark how Jaina philosophyin its way-divined this marrel of nature, and how more than two thousand years ago the Jainas preached and practised compassion towards these tiny and invisible fellow-beings of man by prohibiting an extravagant or careless use of water.
(3) Souls of living beings in fire : the salamander of olden days is an illustration.
(4) Souls of air: the air that we breathe is held to be full of little living creatures.
(5) Souls in the vegetable kingdom : the recent researches of science, and, curiously enough, very much indebted to the exertions of an Indian scientist (Professor J. C. Bose, of Calcutta University), hare demolished the hard and fast distinction between organic and inorganic biology. This is the result of experiments showing that plants live and grow and respond to human and other forces applied to them. Jainism has long credited plants, and, indeed, even
