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300 Scientific Contents in Prākṛta Canons
decays due to denaturation or fuelling.
(iii)The human body is living because of the presence of the digestive fire in the bodies.
(iv)There are many fire-gods mentioned in literature like asura, keepers, sky gods, planetary gods, etc. They are all living and some of them creating troubles for the ascetics in olden days which were overcome due to Lord Rāma.
Contrary to the vital force theory of energies as above, Sthānānga1 shows some improvement. It points out that boththe light forms (shadow, moonlight, darkness) and heat itself could be living as well as non-living. That is why, hot and cold touches have been included in the basic properties of nonliving matter. These touches represent the natural internal thermal nature of matter. It could be surmised that at some critical thermal point, the matter may be called living. The canons also point out the criteria for livingness. Initially every thing in the world is supposed to be living until it is struck, weapon-operated, torn or denatured15 disturbing natural thermal equilibrium of the system.
[ A] Heat
The term Atapa for heat is traceable in Sthānānga and Uttaradhyayana 16. Kundakunda and Mūlācāra have the term 'Agni' with reference to the one-sensed living. These compositions do not give other details of these beings and mattergy (pudgala) involving related phenomena. However, other terms like Taijasa, Pratapa, Tāpa are also observed in canons besides 'agni' and 'atapa'. Etymologically, these terms may have specific meanings, but they could be taken as synonyms" for heat (Heat and light) for our purposes.
It seems there was a concept of simultaneity of heat and light18 but the scholars like Akalanka19 knew the distinction between the two by their different functions. He pointed out that heat causes the substances to burn, to cook or digest foods or bake bricks. It leads to sweating of the body and gets
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