Muni Kishan Lal
The knowledge of the process of birth and rebirth is called gati-agati. Gati is the state in which a person is born. Birth is determined on the basis of the karma. On the basis of the type of karmic particles that a person has collected in one birth, he or she acquires the next birth.
When deluding karmas are governing the person they will be born in hell. There are seven hells. Human beings and five sensed organisms can be born in them. When they move up, from the sixth hell upwards, they can be born as humans or five sensed organisms. However, from the seventh hell, they can be born only as five sensed organisms, not as humans.
Upwards in Bhavanapati, vyantar, jyotishk and the first and second heavens, in the first level of celestials there are two types of birth possible: as humans or as five sensed organisms. There are five possibilities of birth in the first two heavens: humans, animals, water bodies, earth bodies and vegetation. The celestials can be born in the third to eighth heavens as humans or five sensed organisms.
There is only one possibility in the ninth heaven and that is to be born as a human.
In such a manner the Jain texts give us a detailed understanding of the types of births that will come with the type of actions and the places of birth(in which heaven or hell).
