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DEFINITION OF INJURY
The universe is eternal without beginning and end. It resembles the caneseat, the cymbals and the drum. In this universe the living beings have been roaming about, enduring misery in womb after womb, in the beginningless cycle of births and deaths throughout infinity. There is nothing permanent here. Life is as uncertain as the bubbles that float on water. And riches which beget worldly happiness are evanescent like the clouds and lightning. By contemplating thus on the nature of worldly existence, a wholesome awe of worldly existence is attained. The body too is transitory by nature, full of suffering and pain, worthless and unclean. By contemplating on the nature of the body, the desire for sensual pleasures is removed, and the attitude of non-attachment is cultivated. Therefore, the nature of the universe and the body must be contemplated.
Desisting from injury etc. has been described as vow. But we have not been told what injury etc. are. Now these are explained one after another. First injury is defined.
प्रमत्तयोगात्प्राणव्यपरोपणं हिंसा
Pramattayogātprānavyaparopanam himsā. (13) 13. The severance of vitalities out of passion is injury.
Pramāda connotes passion. The person actuated by passion is pramatta. The activity of such a person is pramatta yoga.
The ten vitalities 1 (life-principles) are the five senses and so on. The severance of the vitalities that are present (all the ten vitalities are not present in all living beings) is called injury. It is wicked as it causes pain and suffering to living beings. The qualifying phrase 'arising from passionate activity' is intended to indicate that mere severance of the vitalities is not wicked. "Even with the severance of life one is not stained with the sin of injury.” Again it has been said thus in the scriptures. "When a monk goes on foot with carefulness, sometimes small insects get crushed under his
i The vitalities or life-principles are ten, namely the five senses, energy, respiration, life-duration, the organ of speech and the mind. The one-sensed lives possess four vitalities, the two-sensed six, the three-sensed seven, the foursensed eight, the irrational five-sensed nine and the rational five-sensed all the ten. See pages 62 and 63 (II, 13 & 14).
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