Spiritual Awakening and other Essays

Author(s): Kamalchand Sogani
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

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more; namely, the sense of taste, and the Bala of speech; the three-sensed souls have the sense of smell additionally; the four-sensed souls have the sense of colour besides the above; and lastly, the five-sensed souls which are mindless are endowed with the sense of hearing in addition; and those with mind possess all the ten Prāņas. Thus the number of Prāņas possessed by one-sensed to five-sensed souls is four, six, seven, eight, nine and ten respectively. This classification of Jīvas into five kinds is used for the measurement of the degree of Ahimsa. The more the senses the more the evolved consciousness. As for example, two-sensed Jīvas are more. evolved than the one-sensed beings, five sensed beings are more evolved than the one, two, three and four-sensed beings. Thus Ahimsa will be directly proportionate to the Ahimsa of the beings (Jivas) classified.
Spiritual Perspective of Ahimsa : We have dwelt upon Ahimsa as a social value. This view regards Ahimsa as 'other' oriented and is concerned with the progress and development of the 'other'. The Puruṣārthasiddhyupaya moves in a different direction when it unambiguously expresses that nonemergence of attachment, aversion etc. on the surface of self is Ahimsā (अप्रादुर्भावः खलु रागादिनां भवत्यहिंसेति). 23 This pronouncement has a deep inward reference and regards Ahimsa as a spiritual value. This method of dealing with Ahimsa obliges us to peep into one's own inner life, so that attachment and aversion along with their ramifications like anger, pride, deceit and greed are completely got rid of. The Praśnavyākaraṇa Sūtra designates Ahimsā as Nirvāņa (Ĥ), Samādhi (समाही) Supreme tranquillity (संती), happiness (पमोअ), super satisfaction (fat) and purity (af) and so on.24 In other words, we may say that even the slightest fall from complete self-realisation is to be regarded as Himsā. Thus Himsā
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Spiritual Awakening (Samyagdarśana) and Other Essays