________________
113. CLASSIFICATION HELPS
Philosophy has introduced a system of classification in order to understand the nature of things—both sentient and non-sentient. But even outside philosophy, a certain wealthy farmer Kucikarna by name, owning a large herd of cattle, followed the same method on his farm in the country of Magadha. He had in his employment a large number of boys to look after his cattle. He distributed them into manageable units and assigned them to the various boys but the cows got mixed up and the boys often involved themselves into quarrels. They could not distinguish between each other's cows, So, to avoid this confusion and quarrels, Kucikarna classified the cows into various groups on the basis of the colour or their skin.
Here the master of the cows should be taken to mean the philosopher tirthankara and the cowherd boys as his pupils wanting to know the precise nature of things, which the cows stand for. Like the cows, matter (pudgala) is classified into various categories.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
