Dr. N.L. Kachhara
The species of a soul is pre decided. This means that the kind of body a soul is going to get is decided in his previous life. The naam karma of the soul bonded in the previous life determines the gati, the class of life viz., infernal, celestial, animal or human, jati viz. number of senses, the type of body that is species, and the structure of body in this life. In the transit period between two lives the soul is equipped with psychical sense though it does not have sense organs. So, the soul has sense perceptions right from the time of conception when the physical organs are not formed.
The first nourishment of soul consists of the seed cell produced by the union of sperm and egg cells of parents. The life begins from this seed cell. The first nourishment is, in fact, considered to be a luminous type. The skin nourishment starts right in the womb when the body parts of the fetus are formed and afterwards it continues throughout the life. The fetus does not take in alimentary food; it depends for nourishments on mother for its growth. The fetus draws only the essential elements from the diet of mother and does not share food as such. The internal parts like stomach etc do not come in contact with air and so stool, urine and gas, are not produced (or produced in a negligible amount) in the body of a fetus. The breathing by fetus is connected to breathing of mother. The food elements and oxygen from mother's body are transported through placenta. The carbon dioxide, urea etc. produced in fetus are transported back to mother's body in the same way. The food and breathing activities of fetus are thus not independent, they are related to food intake and breathing by the mother.
Besides the process of natural conception Jain philosophy also describes methods of artificial conception. The Sthananga canon describes five such methods. All these methods essentially involve artificial means of transplanting sperm cells in the womb. It is said that up to nine hundred thousand souls can take birth at a time in the womb of a female. Most of them die before conception. The pregnancy period in human females varies from less than an Indian hour to a maximum of twelve years. The maximum period of pregnancy in animals is eight years.
