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Classification and Life Cycle of Living Beings : 427
place. As many species, as many birth places. These are classified on the basis of many general conditions under which the living body is conceived and grows. The body may grow by assimilation of proper extracts or material from surroundings under suitable conditions of (a) covering, (b) climate and (c) temperature. The combination or reverses of these conditions make the total variety of birth places to be nine. The commentators of Umāsvāti's aphorism (T. S. 2. 32 ) have defined the word 'sacitta' as place with living matter34 which does not seem to suit here. It should mean climatic conditions like humid and dry or habitat.
The birth places have been referred to all kinds of living beings and one commonly knows that different plants and even animals have different types of environmental conditions for their nucleation and growth. The explaination of Pujyapāda on mixed vagina is, thus, not convincing. Secondly, cellular genesis of life assumes livingness all the times during growth of lower or higher species. The T. S. commentators also seem to be off the track when they say that semen is non-living as it contains the cells and all the genetic code for growth of the living35. Yasodharacarita does also seem anomalous when it mentions that livingness may accrue in the womb even a week after the union of sperm and ovum and that a father may become his own son36. The livingness enters the womb while concieving is another opinion for birth. This also does not sound scientific. Thus, a newer meaning of 'sacitta' or the reverse will make Jaina description little more scientific.
Though the nine-variety classification of birth places is the simplest one, the canonists would tell us the number of birth places upto 84 lacs or 8.4 million like the Vedāntins based on classification of different living species. Prajñāpanā has different numeration, though Malayavṛtti calls 'sankhyāta' as seven in many cases. This should be looked into. This means an another sense of the term 'yoni' as a form of life which has a special birth-place. This is formalisation of cause into effect.
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