Schools and Sects in Jaina Literature

Author(s): Amulyachandra Sen
Publisher: Vishwa Bharati Calcutta

Page 30

SCHOOLS AND SECTS IN JAINA LITERATURE
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the latter wanted to be allowed to come away so that he might warn his relations against committing such acts lest they also be punished as he was, then would Payesi allow him to come away? Similar was the case with those suffering torments in hell, they could not come away howsoever they might long for it.
Payesi : "I had a grandmother who was a very pious lady and must have been born in the heavens after death. If she would come and exhort me to righteousness then I would believe that the soul and the body are different things."
Kesi answered at length pointing out that as Payesi would not respond to another's call to come away while Payesi was entering a temple properly sanctified, through fear lest he be defiled so also his grandmother too would not come.
Payesi : "Once while I was seated in my outer hall of audience surrounded by many chiefs, my Prefect of the Police brought a thief in chains whom I ordered to be put alive in an iron vessel which was hermetically sealed and guards were placed around it. Then after some days I went to the iron vessel, caused it to be unsealed and myself looked for the soul of that thief. If there were holes in the vessel I would have believed that the soul had escaped but as there were none therefore no soul exists apart from the body."
Kesi answered that just as if a man took a trumpet inside a house, closed every opening carefully, and then sounded the trumpet it would be heard outside although there was no apparent outlet, so the soul also could penetrate through earth, stone, etc.
Payesi : "Once I cut into pieces a thief, and put the body inside a closely guarded hermetically-sealed iron vessel. Opening it after sometime I found countless number of worms. Because these living worms originated out of the dead body-for there was no opening for them to enter--my doctrine is sound that the soul and the body are not different things."
Kesi replied that the king must have had occasion sometime or other to watch the heating of iron and he must have then seen how it became red-hot. There were no opening in the iron through which the fire could have entered, and in the same manner the soul of the dead man had gone out and the souls of the worms had entered the iron vessel unperceived by the senses.