________________
PRINCIPLES OF JAINISM
199
variety. Plants are of two kinds: subtile and gross. There are three kinds of immovable living beings and three kinds of movable beings. The fire-lives are of two kinds: subtile and gross ones. Denizens of hells are of seven kinds according to the seven hells. Animals are of three kinds: aquatic, terrestrial, and aerial. Those souls who cherish wrong views, who commit sins and kill living beings, will not reach enlightenment at the time of death. Those who cherish right views, do not commit sins and are enveloped in white leśyā, will reach enlightenment at the time of death. Those who love the creed of the Jinas and piously practise it, will be pure and free from passions and will in due time get out of the circle of births. Miserable men who do not know the creed of the Jinas will many times commit unholy suicide and die against their will. Those who are well versed in the sacred lore and possess much knowledge, who awaken piety in others and appreciate the good qualities, are worthy to hear the doctrine of salvation. Those who practise spells and besmear their bodies with ashes for the sake of pleasure realize the ābhiyogika-bhāvanā. Those who use weapons, eat poison, throw themselves into fire and water and use things not prescribed by the rules of conduct, are liable to be born and to die again and again.
A person who owns a small property in living or lifeless things or consents to others holding it, will not be delivered from misery. If he kills living beings or causes other men to kill them or consents to their killing them, his iniquity will go on increasing. A sinner who makes the interest of his relations and companions his own, will suffer much. His wealth and his nearest relations cannot protect him from future misery. According to atheists the five gross elements, earth, water, fire, wind, and air, are the original causes of things, from them emerges ātman; on the disintegration of these five elements, living beings cease to exist. Every body has an individual soul. These souls exist as long as the body exists but after death they are no more. There is neither virtue nor vice, there is no world beyond, on the dissolution of the body the individual ceases to be.3 Some hold that when a man acts or causes another to act, it is not his soul which acts or causes to act. The fatalists hold that pleasure and pain, final beatitude, and temporal pleasure and pain are not determined by the souls themselves but by external causes. It is the lot assigned to them by destiny. According to
The abhiyogidcvas are genii who serve the gods. This bhāvanā loads one to birth as an ábhiyogi deva. 2 Sūtrakrlariga, 1, 2.
3 Ibid., 1, 11, 12, 13.
