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SOME JAINA CANONICAL SUTRAS
blue lesya has the colour of the blue asoka (Jonesia-aśoka) having red flowers. The grey lesya has the colour of the flower of atasi (Linum usitatissimum) having blue flowers. The red lesya has the colour of vermilion. The yellow leśyā has the colour of orpiment. The white lesya has the colour of conch-shell. The taste of the black lesya is more bitter than that of tumbaka (Lagenaria vulgaris). The taste of the blue lesya is more pungent than black pepper and dry ginger. The taste of grey lesya is more pleasant than that of ripe mango. The degrees of the lesyas are three or nine or twenty-seven or eighty-one or two hundred and forty-three. Each of these degrees is three-fold: low, middle and high. A man who acts on the impulse of the five sins, who commits cruel acts, who is wicked and mischievous, develops the black lesya. A monk who has anger, ignorance, hatred, wickedness, deceit, greed, carelessness, love of enjoyment, etc., develops the blue lesyā. A man who is dishonest in words and acts, a heretic, a deceiver, a thief, etc., develops the grey lesya. A man who is humble, well-disciplined, restrained, free from deceit, who loves the law, develops the red lesyā. A man who controls himself, who is attentive to his study and duties, develops the yellow leśya. A man who controls himself, who abstains from constant thinking about his misery, who is free from passion, who is calm, and who subdues his senses, develops the white lesya. The black, blue and grey lesyās are the lowest lesyās, through them the soul is brought into miserable courses of life. The red, yellow and white lesyās are the good lesyās, through them the soul is brought into happy courses of life. In the first and last moment of all these lesyās, when they are joined with the soul, the latter is not born into a new existence.1
Things without life are: (1) possessing form, and (2) formless. There are ten kinds of formless things, e.g. dharma, adharma, space, division, time, etc.2 Dharma, adharma and space are ever without beginning and end. The four kinds of things possessing form are compound things, their divisions, their indivisible parts and atoms. Subtile things occur all over the world. Living beings are of two kinds: those still belonging to the samsara, and the perfected souls. The perfected souls have no visible form. They are developed into knowledge and faith and they possess paramount happiness. Living beings are of two kinds; movable and immovable. The earth-lives are of two kinds; subtile and gross. The subtile earth is but of one kind as there is no
Uttaradhyayana, XXXV.
2 Ibid., XXXVI.
