Religion and Philosophy of the Jainas

Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Jain International Ahmedabad

Page 97

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RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE JAINAS
whose forces will take them to sone other planer, and we say that there is another condition of birth there. There is no necessity for gestation and fecundation. The karmic body has in itself many powers, and has a force to take to itself another body, which is in the case of the human being a gross body. but in the case of other beings a subtle body is generated and this body is changeable so far as its forn and diniensions a concerned. Therefore, if the forces generated wiile we live any kind of life are of different kinds, then in the case of some being it may be necessary that he should be born in the human condition and pass through the actual conditions winch maust be obeyed if the human being is to be bon, while if the forces generated are different in their characier je nidy be bom on some other planet where birth is manifested in a different way. without any necessity of the combination of the male and the female principle. There are so many different planes of life ihat the mere study of the human life ought not to be made to apply to ali the affairs of life. We have studied only a few forms of the life of animals, human beings, etc., but that is only the part which under the present development of our science, of our eyesight even, we are able to study. We are not able to study other forms of life, innumer:ble in the universe', and therefore we ought not to apply the laws thus discovered to all forms of life. Our study is introspective because our idea is that the soul is able to know everything under the right circumstances. Number and Classes of Living Beings
There is no limit to the number of souls. There are an infinite number. Take out of an infinite number an infinite number, and an infinite number will remain. In the space occupied by the point of a needle there are many souls, and no matter how many are taken oui an infinite number remains.
There is not an inch of space in the universe where there are not innumerable minute living beings. They are smaller than the minutest things we can see with the aid of a miscroscope. Weapons and fire are too gross to destroy them. Their life and death depend on their vital forces, which are, of course, related