________________
254
SVASTI - Essays in Honour of Prof. Hampa Nagarajaiah
vi) The trasas which constitute the sixth category, are: - Dvīndriya, bi-sensed, having taste in addition, as earthworm; - Trīndriya, tri-sensed, having smell in addition, as the ants; - Caturindriya, tetra-sensed, having sight in addition, as the black bee; and, - Pañcendriya, penta-sensed, having hearing in addition, as birds, animals and humans.
There are ten components of vitality (prāna), viz.
i) touch, ii) body, iii) respiration, iv) lifespan, v) taste, vi speech, vii) smell, viii) sight, ix) hearing and x) ratiocination.
One-sensed beings have the first four components of vitality, viz. touch, body, respiration and lifespan; two-sensed have the fifth, taste, and the sixth, speech, in addition; three-sensed have the seventh, smell, in addition; the four-sensed have the eighth, sight, in addition; and the five-sensed beings have the ninth, hearing, in addition. But among these ratiocination remains the exclusive preserve of the fivesensed rational beings, namely, the humans. In Jaina metaphysics bhāsā or vāc has been postulated as paudgalika (non-sentient matter and energy). Only an embodied jīva can produce it by vibrating its appropriate paudgalika content to express its agreeable or disagreeable feeling (sātāsātā-vedanā). Since the sthāvaras (immobile) cannot vibrate their paudgalika content, these have no speech, though they are jīva and have a body also. Only the trasas, two-sensed onwards, can do that. But in their case too bhāsā or vāc need not be invariably vocal. Any physical movement of a jīva, under the impact of a sensation, gross or subtle, is expressive of its response, and, is, therefore, speech, oral or extra-oral, audible or inaudible. In physical observation, two-sensed like worms etc., three-sensed like ants etc. do not seem to be producing any sound. But on minute observation, it has been found that insects produce sound by friction, the ants and the like by vibrating their proboscis. The snakes produce hissing sound by short quick breath, the crickets by vibrating their external membrane and the black bees by vibrating their wings. Fishes produce sound by vibrating the inner muscles of their body. Animals and birds produce vocal sound. All these sounds are inarticulate. Articulation begins with the humans who, besides the five senses, have a ratiocinative mind by virtue of which they can conceptualize their percepts and find out ways to express the concepts by producing appropriate sounds. Speech when emitted, instantly assumes a vajra-shape, i.e. the shape of the cosmos, at the extremities of which it terminates, because motion is not possible in trans-cosmic space. Speech, as sound waves, is mechanical energy which is transmitted by compression waves, at different speed in different media like air, water, metal etc. This speed is much less than that of light (roughly three lakh kilometer per second). So
