________________
214
Reals in the Jaina Metaphysics
predestined unalterably for particular roles but have a fundamental identity of the germinal substance. If so, then the question re-appears as to why from two cells, essentially similar two altogether different Bodies are grown. In 8, Vairāgyādhyāya, the author of the Sāmkhya-Sūtra's takes up the question and explains ofania: fazati Varieties in corporeal forms are due to the Sūkşma Sarira or the body-building forces being peculiarly modified by effects of one's Karma in one's previous life.
ACQUIRED CHARACTERS OF ANCESTORS
In the above lines, we have dealt with the problem of the genesis of what is called the "innate character” of the animal Body i.e. its assumption of the normal shape of its limbs and sub-limbs, common to all the individuals of the species. The next question in connection with the animal Body is its relation to the parental bodies. It is ordinarily said that a child inherits from his parents and sometimes from grandparents also in cases of atavism, not only their peculiarities of character and temperament but even those of their bodies. A Scotch Highlander's son, for instance, is ordinarily tall like his parents while people of the dolichocephalic race have ordinarily heads of a peculiar type. From evidences of this nature, it is argued that ancestral characteristics, technically called “the acquired” features are inherited. It may be said that if the acquired characters be thus transmissible, if, that is to say, the peculiarities of the child's body are caused by the peculiarities in his parent's bodies the hypothesis of the Sūkşma Sarīra, as an independent and external force acting upon the germplasma becomes clearly superfluous. But the question of the inheritance of acquired features is not so simple as it is ordinarily thought to be.
HERITABILITY OF ACQUIRED FEATURES
The cases of the acquired features in a Body have been broadly brought under three mainheads. First of all, there
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
