Dr. N.L. Kachhara
The study of microorganisms and viruses is relevant for the study of these vargana. A microorganism or microbe is an organism that is microscopic (too small to be seen by the human eye). Microorganisms include bacteria, fungi, archaea or protists, but not viruses and prions, which are generally classified as non-living. Most microorganisms are single-celled, or unicellular, but some are microscopic, and some unicellular protists are visible to the average human. Bacteria measure from 0.5-5.0 micrometers and viruses generally from 10-300 nanometers. Most viruses are unable to be seen with a light microscope but some are as large as or larger than the smallest bacteria and can be seen under high optical magnification. Electron Microscopy is the commonest method used to study the morphology of viruses. Microorganisms live almost everywhere on Earth where there is liquid water, including hot springs, on the ocean floor, and deep inside rocks within the Earth's crust. Microorganisms are critical to nutrient recycling in ecosystems as they act as decomposers. As some microorganisms can also fix nitrogen, they are also an important part of the nitrogen cycle. However, pathogenic microbes can invade and grow within other organisms and cause diseases that kill millions of people and other animals every year.
Prokaryotes are organisms that lack a cell nucleus and the other organelles found in eukaryotes. Prokaryotes are almost always unicellular, although some such as mycobacterium can aggregate into complex structures as part of their life cycle. These organisms are divided into two groups, the archaea and bacteria. Bacteria are the most diverse and abundant group of microorganisms on Earth. Bacteria inhabit practically all environments where some liquid water is available and the temperature is below +1400C. They are found in seawater, soil, and animal gastrointestinal tracts, hot springs and even deep beneath the Earth's crust in rocks. There are typically 40 million bacterial cells in a gram of soil and a million bacterial cells in a milliliter of fresh water. There are approximately 10 times as many bacterial cells as human cells in the human body, with large number of bacteria on the skin and in the digestive tract. The number of bacteria in the world is estimated to be around five million trillion trillion, or 5x1030. Under optimal conditions bacteria can grow extremely rapidly and can double as quickly as every 10 minutes.
Archaea are also single - celled organisms that lack nuclei. Archaea differ from bacteria in their genetic and biochemistry. Archaea were originally described in extreme environment, such as hot springs, but have since been found in all types of habitats. Only now are scientists beginning to appreciate how common archaea are in the environment, with crenanrhacota being the most common form of life in the ocean, dominating ecosystems below 150 m in depth. These organisms are also common in soil and play a vital role in ammonia oxidation.
All living things, which are individually visible to the naked eye, are eukaryotes (with few exceptions), including humans. However, a large number of eukaryotes are also microorganisms. Unlike bacteria and archaea, eukaryotes contain organelles such as cell nucleus, the Golgi apparatus and mitochondria in their cells. Unicellular eukaryotes are those eukaryotic organisms that consist of a single cell throughout their life cycle. This qualification is significant since most multi cellular eukaryotes consist of a single cell called a zygote at the beginning of their life cycles. Microbial eukaryotes can be either haploid or diploid, and some organisms have multiple cell nuclei. However, not all microorganisms are unicellular as some microscopic eukaryotes are made from multiple cells of eukaryotic groups; the protists are most commonly unicellular and microscopic. This is a diverse group of microorganisms, which are not easy to classify. Several algae species are multi cellular protists, and slime molds have unique life cycles with unicellular, colonial, and multi cellular stages. The green algae are a large group of photosynthetic eukaryotes that include many microscopic organisms. Although some green algae are classified as protists, others such as charophyta are classified with embryophyte plants, which are the most familiar group of land plants. The fungi have several unicellular species, such as baker's yeast.
All animals are multi cellular, but some are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopic arthropods include dust mites and spider mites. Microscopic crustaceans include copepods and the cladocera. Another common group of microscopic animals are the rotifers, which are filter feeders that are usually found in fresh water.
Certain microbes have adapted so that they can survive and even thrive in condition that are normally fatal to most life forms. Microorganisms have been found around under water black smokers and in geothermal hot springs, as well as in extremely salty bodies of water. Extremophiles have been isolated from rocks as much as 7 kilometers below the earth's surfaces, and it has been suggested that the amount of living organisms below the earth's surface may be comparable with the amount of life on or above the surface. Extremophiles have been known to survive for a prolonged time in a vacuum, and can be highly resistant to radiation, which may even allow than to survive in space.
In contrast to higher organisms, bacteria exhibit an extremely wide variety of metabolic types. Bacterial metabolism is classified on the basis of three major criteria: the kind of energy used for growth, the source of carbon, and the electron donors used for growth. An additional criterion of respiratory microorganisms is the electron acceptors used for aerobic or anaerobic respiration. Carbon metabolism in bacteria is either heterotrophic or autotrophic. Energy metabolism of bacteria is either based on phototrophy or chemiotrophy.
A virus is a sub-microscopic infectious agent that is unable to grow or reproduce outside a host cell. Each viral particle, or virion, consists of genetic material, DNA or RNA, within a protective protein coat called caprid. Their shape varies from simple helical and icosahedra (polyhedral or near- spherical) forms, to more complex structures with tails or an envelope. Viruses infect cellular forms of life and grouped into animal, plant and bacterial viruses. It has been argued whether viruses are living organisms. Some consider them non-living, as they do not meet the criteria of the definition of life. For example, unlike most organisms, viruses do not have cells. Viral populations do not grow through cell division; instead, they use the machinery and metabolism of host cell to produce multiple copies of themselves. However, viruses have genes and evolve by natural selection. They have been described as organisms at the edge of life. Some viruses, like tardigrade and others, can be preserved for years in dried powder state. When mixed with water they come to life again and start their activities in a host cell.
An argument can be made that accepted forms of life use cell division to reproduce, whereas viruses spontaneously assemble within cells. The comparison is drawn between viral selfassembly and the autonomous growth of non-living crystals. If viruses are considered alive, then the criteria specifying life will have to exclude the cell. If viruses are said to be alive, the question could follow of whether even smaller infectious particles, such as viriods and prions, are alive.
We now consider the classification of microorganisms on the basis of Jain philosophy. Most microorganisms, including bacteria, algae, etc., have tail in the form of flagelium or flagella that imparts movement in the medium they live in. From this consideration the microorganisms are mobile beings and must have at least two senses, touch and taste. The taste sense indicates that these organisms possess a mechanism for taking in food and digesting it to produce energy. We know that most microorganisms are heterotophs and some are autotrophs and chemiotrophs.
Viruses are a different class of organisms, smaller than microorganisms and considered to be at the edge of life. This means that they are part living and part non-living. Their consciousness is mostly latent a very small - explicit fraction enables them to enjoy life. Virions and prions are still smaller particles having even a smaller fraction of consciousness in the explicit state. Viruses do not have self-mobility (only complex viruses have tail) and are transported from one place to another by some medium. Viruses, therefore, qualify to be immobile organisms. The next question is whether they are large or small type. The small type of immobile organisms (suksma nigod jiva) are extremely small and do not interact (apratighati) with any other living being. Hence viruses, which interact with other organisms, must be considered as large immobile organisms. Each virus consists of several smaller virion particles, a structure that is typical of large nigod organisms.
A complete virus particle, known as a virion, consists of nucleic acid surrounded by a protective coat of protein called a capsid. Viruses can have a lipid 'envelope' derived from the host cell membrane. A capsid is made from proteins coded by viral genome. An enormous variety of genomic structure can be seen among viral species; as a group they contain more structural genomic diversity than the entire kingdoms of plants, animals, or bacteria. Viruses may employ either DNA or RNA as the nucleic acid. Rarely do they contain both. According to Jain philosophy the karma and gross bodies of large nigod organisms is made from LNV. But we have seen that the gross body of virus is made of protein and nucleic acid, like other mobile organisms. The karma body of virus however, may be made of LNV instead of karman vargana. Whether LNV also has a role in the construction of gross body is not known scientifically. But this possibility cannot be denied.
We have stated earlier that bulbous roots and roots of various sorts are examples of large microorganism. The roots grow in soil, which is attached to their body. We know that the soil contains large amount of bacteria. Perhaps it is for this reason that roots have been described as large microorganism and common body plants. If the upper layer of roots containing bacteria is removed; the remaining root should be treated like any other solitary plant.
The existence of small nigod organisms is known only to omniscient or to humans having high clairvoyance power (param avadhi jnana). These organisms are not likely to be discovered by science, as they do not interact with other organisms or instruments. The occurrence of large nigod organisms, viruses, is limited but small nigod organisms are found all over loka. The small nigod organisms are so small, perhaps of atomic size, that their karma, luminous and gross bodies are supposed to be made of same vargana, SNV. In other words they have only one body, which fulfills the functions of gross, luminous, and karma bodies. This is the kind of body the soul has been having from the very beginning. The SNV being smaller than GMV, the small nigod organisms are a class different from viruses and cannot be seen even by electron microscope. A virion may contain innumerable small nigod organisms as claimed by Jain philosophy.
Some interesting aspects emerge from above analysis. The karma body stores information. The amount of information to be stored would depend on the state of development of consciousness of the organism. Humans are highly developed organisms and have more information than animals and animals in turn have more information than insects. Going down the line viruses have the least amount of information. The soul uses an appropriate medium to store the information. All mobile organisms use karman vargana for storing information. Karman vargana appear to be information intensive and can store very large amount of information for very long time. Viruses use LNV to store the little information they have. The small nigod organisms have the least amount of information and this is stored on the same vargana, which constitutes their gross body. Thus the soul makes an appropriate choice of material for constructing the various bodies.
Do small nigod organisms have genes? Normally genes are made of GMV. The question is whether such structures can also be made from SNV, and going further, whether they are essential for an organism. Since the small nigod organism has a sense of touch, some kind of organization, structure and regulation would be required for operation of its body. So it is imagined that small nigod organisms may have some primitive kind of gene like structure made of SNV that contains the necessary information code for construction and operation of the body. According to Jain philosophy their life span is very short, may be a few seconds (they complete 17 life cycles in one breathe). Oxygen made of GMV cannot be inhaled by organisms made of SNV and so the small nigod organism live without oxygen and survive all over loka, perhaps including places like sun. How small nigod organisms can be killed? They do not interact with GMV so perhaps cannot be killed by conventional methods. They are, of course, larger than photon and so may be killed by radiations.
Let us now consider what earth body, water body, air body and fire body organisms are? They are also assumed to be as small as small nigod organisms. It they really exist independently then their existence is not explained by vargana analysis. If they are same as small nigod organisms then their different nomenclature appears to be based on different habitats, earth, water, air and fire. In the later case the four types of organisms are fundamentally same. Another possibility is that the bacteria and viruses present in earth, water, air and fire are respectively called organisms of that class. In this case these organisms can be killed and justify the carefulness the Jains so faithfully observe.
