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498 : Scientific Contents in Prākrta Canons
food while the latter ones feed on others. Plants come mostly under the first category while all other beings under the second category. The canons contain materials about foods for both of these categories. Before one could describe, one must have an idea about the term food itself.
The canons have associated this term with many other ones. These are such as food – variform (Ahāra vargana ), food completions (Ahāra paryāpti ), food renunciation (Ahāra pratyākhyāna ), food affliction (Ahāra parišana ), food donation (Ahāra dāna ) instinct ( Ahāra Sanjñā ) and ejectable body (Ānāraka sarira ). These terms represent various normal and religious aspects of food. However, these terms do not indicate about the definition of food.
Normally, the individuality of man is the resultant of many factors like tradition, trait, environment, psychology, society, genetics and food etc. The food is one of the most important of them. There are some maxims, "As you eat, so your mind" or "As you drink, so you speak". These represent the effects of food on our mind and body. These maxims are related with time and place and they are psychologically very importants. The religiously held kārmic theory states that the food causes to develop body, its shape, its different parts, joints, bindings and other physical forms. The food is also intaken when there is more than one-instant transitional motion
The food is called 'Ahāra'- a word composed from two words - Ā (from environment or all sides ) and Hāra (intake ). This means the materials which are intaken from all types of surroundings. Pujyapāda and Akalanka' define food as intake of material aggregates causing the build up of gross bodies and their functional energies. Thus, all physical materials intaken through diets are called food. Besides, the Jainas postulate that many activities and volitions like knowledge, sight and quasi-karmas like laughter, sorrow, fear, hatred, desires, sexfeeling etc. are also mattergic by nature. They are also intaken
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