________________
"Samyakdarshana sampannaah pashavo'pi suraa mataah samyakdarshanahiinaaste pashavo hi suraa api" ~ Antarnaad (Page 1, Author: Upadhyaya Amara Muni, Publisher: Amar Bharti, Virayatan (Bihar) December 1972)
In the presence of samyaktva, an animal is like a demigod (deva). In the absence of samyaktva, a demigod (deva) is like an animal.
In reality, being an animal or a demigod has nothing to do with the body. A demigod is one who is endowed with the divine perspective. From the spiritual point of view, only souls, which have samyaktva are endowed with divine perspective. Whether the soul, which has samyaktva has the body of an animal, a human or a demigod is of no importance. The presence of samyaktva in an animal renders its divinity. Demigods residing in heavens who lack samyaktva drown themselves in sensual pleasures and remain in saturnine meditation (aarta dhyaana). Hence, they are reborn as one sensed beings. Indubitably, in the absence of samyaktva, a living being is like a beast.
The impact of samyaktva is such that once attained, the soul shall never be reborn in the lower 6 hells. The soul which has samyaktva shall never be reborn as a bhavanapati {mansion-dwelling}, vyantara {peripatetic) or jyotishika {stellar} type of deva celestial being}.
But if this is true, why was King Shreniika, who had attained lasting (kshaayika) samyaktva, reborn in the first hell? And why was Nanda Maniyaara, despite being a shraavaka {ideal Jain layman, reborn as a frog? And why was Lord Mallinatha, in his last life, born as a woman? How could this be possible? It has been explained thus in the Aavashyaka Niryukti:
"Sammaaditthii jiivo gacchaaii niyamam vimaanavaasisu jaha na vigaya sammatto, aha navi badhaayupuvvam cha" ~ Aavashyaka Niryukti
~ Samyagdharshana; (Page 130, Author: Ashokmuni, Publisher: Diwaakarjyoti Karyaalaya, Byaawar (Rajasthan), year 1981) Souls, which have attained samyaktva are most certainly reborn as empyrean celestial beings provided they had samyaktva at the time they bound their next birth and not lost it.
In all three of the above cases - King Shreniika, Nanda Maniyaara and Lord Mallinatha - they had bound their rebirth at a point in time when their souls lacked samyaktva. King Shreniika had bound his next rebirth before he attained samyaktva. Nanda Maniyaara, despite being a shraavaka, had experienced tremendous longing for a tiny well that he had built while following the vow of paushadha (36 hour fast observed in a diligent manner while staying in a religious place and thus lost his samyaktva. Lord Mallinatha, it is believed, had practised a little artifice while practising penance along with his friends in an earlier life and hence was reborn as a woman.
249
