Sambodhi 1975 Vol 04

Author(s): Dalsukh Malvania, H C Bhayani
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 19

The World of Life according to the Jaina Literature
It is clear from the above statements on the mode of nutrition of terrestrial. aquatic and aerial organisms that some of these heterotrophs live either at the expense of autotrophs or upon movable organisms and fungi and bacteria upon decaying matter.Ro
There are several types of heterotrophic nutrition as there are various classes of heterotrophs. When food is obtained as solid particles that must be eaten, digested and absorbed, as in most animals; the process may be known as holozoic nutrition, i. e., Holozoic organisms must constantly find and catch other organisms for food. 91
The parasitic organisms (Anusūya=anusūta or anusyūta) growing on the animate or inanimate bodies'2 of manifold movable or immovable creatures feed on tha humours of various movable creatures (27).03
In this way the vermin also feeds on the humours of living animals (28, 29). It means that the parasites may obtain their nutrients by ingesting and digesting solid particles or by absorbing organic molecules through their cell walls from the body fluid or tissues of the host.
Some organisms born in the animate or inanimate bodies of manifold movable or immovable creatures as that (water) body, which is produced by wind, condensed by wind, and carried along by wind, e.g. hoar-frost, snow, mist, hailstones, dew and rain, feed on the humours of these mani. fold movable and immovable creatures (30)94, etc. Some beings born in water, come forth in water (bodies) in the water, produced by manifold movable or immovable beings, feed on the bumours of the water (bodies) produced by manifold movable and immovable creatures (31).
Some beings born in water come forth in water-bodies and feed on the humours of these other water-bodies produced by water-bodies (32).
Some beings born in water, come forth as movable creatures in the water produced by water-bodies and feed on the humours of the water (bodies) produced by water (34).85
Some beings come forih as fire-bodies in manifold animate or inanimate bodies of moyable or immovable creatures and they feed on the
IV)
90. Aya, kuhana (mushroom), etc. feed on decaying matter, i e, decomposed bodies. " 91. Sūtraktānga II. 3.2 92. Sutrakytānga II, 3.27. 93. Ibid. II 3.28-29. 94. Sutrakytānga. II. 3.30. This paragraph gives the Scientific explanation of the way
by which water-bodies or the bodies of water-lives are produced by wind., S.B.E.
XLV., p. 226, fn. 2. 95. Satrakytānga II. 3(31-33). This statement on the mode of nutrition of water-bodied
beings or bacteria needs scientific experiment and verification for its validity. It is difficult to suggest their true identifications at the present state of knowledge about
them on the basis of the Agamas, Sambodhi 4.1