Dr. N.L. Kachhara
Jain philosophy lays focus on evolution of soul and shows how a soul climbs the ladder from lowest level to highest level of existence. This journey of progress is mainly determined by karma. As mentioned earlier there is an inexhaustible stock of inactive nano organisms in the bottomland of lower loka. When a soul in middle loka is liberated and occupies a place in the abode of emancipated souls at the top of upper loka a vacancy is created in the mobile zone and so a nano organism migrates from its abode to the mobile zone. This is the beginning of evolution. At this stage only a minutest fraction of consciousness of the soul is explicit, the rest of consciousness is covered by karma and is in the latent state. A soul with latent consciousness feels deficient and incomplete. By natural instinct the soul wants to be pure and so tries to overcome the forces, which are shielding his consciousness. This provides a motivating force to soul to act and annihilate the karmas, which are hindering his progress. This struggle against karma is the journey to progress and is evolution.
The form and complexity of the gross body of an organism is compatible with his explicit consciousness. The complexity of the body increases with consciousness. With minimum consciousness the organisms has only one explicit sense and needs the simplest kind of body. Here we should be clear about the meaning of sense of an organism. The organism, in fact, has all the five senses; the gross body has the facility to use only the sense of touch, which is explicit. We know that the subtle body, mainly the luminous body, carries out the management and regulation of the gross body. At the minimum level of consciousness the ability of the luminous body is also at its lowest level and it cannot support a complex body. So the soul has the simplest kind of body in which only the touch sense exists, no parts are formed in the body that is sensitive to other stimuli.
In order that the soul achieves perfection, all the five senses must be operational. So the first priority of soul is to develop the remaining four senses. This needs higher consciousness, which can be achieved by reducing karma. The easiest and possible way of doing so, at that stage of development, is to enjoy (bhog) the karma. So soul spends time in one-sense bodies, which could be millions of years, till his consciousness is sufficient to assume a more complex body having two senses. In this phase of life over a long period of millions of years the karmas reduce by way of emissions and consciousness increases. We have classified the one-sense small nano organisms as earth body, water body, air body and fire body and also plant body souls. In the initial phase of evolution the soul occupies the four kinds of nano or micro bodies and then enters a plant body. This order of evolution is also accepted by science. The unicellular bodies prevailed on Earth in its earlier life and then came vegetation and plants. The question how the first cell was created is not important in Jain philosophy. The small nano organisms present on Earth in its early life provide the primitive cell having some kind of gene structure. The evolution starts from this basic stage and a cell suitable for higher organisms is developed in due course of time. The small nano organism can be considered to be the common ancestor of all organisms including bacteria and archaea. Further refinement of cell takes place and prokaryotes cells are evolved which prepare ground for vegetation and plants.
It has been discovered that different class of bacteria existed on early Earth. Photosynthesizing bacteria evolved in volcanic eruptions where hydrogen was found. Such bacteria can still be found in volcano areas like Yellowstone in Wyoming (these could be fire beings). Other bacteria forms eventually arose, which were able to extract hydrogen from a much more widespread source, water (these may be water beings). When hydrogen is removed from water, free oxygen remains. The oxygen so accumulated through millions of years provided environment for oxygen-based life to evolve. These organisms, which are complex only as compared with bacteria, are found where there is constant moisture and are close relative of green algae. Some of these algae, which are blue green, have developed a strange lime oozing form. The blue-green pillars of Hamelin Pool are living stromolites. They are living organisms that secrete lime, producing skeletons of stone and live in an environment where deposits of ooze and sand are being laid down (these may be earth beings). The most primitive life forms that share plant characteristics are smallest viruses and algae (these could be plant beings). Thus various forms of immobile organisms evolved from nano organisms on early Earth.
In the next phase of development the soul acquires a plant body (having one sense of touch). This is also a long phase of millions of years. Vegetation and plants produce oxygen and make the atmosphere suitable for other forms of life. The soul with increased consciousness is now capable of having a two-sense body. Darwin has rightly called the transition from plant body to two-sense body as natural selection. But in a deeper sense natural selection means struggle by the soul to reduce his karma and improve the quality of genes so that a higher form of body can be assumed. The mutation of genes, which is supposed to be the main force behind evolution and natural selection, is the result of will power of the soul to improve his consciousness and not just chance as is generally assumed. It is known that genes can be changed by frequencies. Such frequencies must be generated internally by the soul with his consciousness so that gene mutation takes place. Psychologists also believe that consciousness can alter the hologram that is karma.
The progress of development of consciousness continues and the soul assumes successively three sense, four sense and five sense bodies. The group consciousness may also have a role in evolution. Jain philosophy believes that life exists all over the universe and there is a possibility of intercommunication between them at subtle (unconscious) level due to hyper communication and collective consciousness. Hyper communication is possible through 4-touch vargana, which do not suffer from speed limitation imposed by special theory of relativity. Frequencies generated through such communication may alter gene characteristics and internally motivate the organisms to evolve. Is natural selection instrumental in transition through all these stages shall be discussed later? We first attempt to validate the theory that evolution takes place from one sense to fivesense organism.
Evolution has been assumed to take place with increase in consciousness and reduction in karma, including the knowledge obscuring karma. The knowledge increases with the number of senses. In the five-sense category there are two distinct forms of life, animals and humans. Humans have highly developed mental faculty and possess far more knowledge and intelligence than animals. The knowledge, as information, is stored in the brain. This means that if soul evolves from one sense to five sense animals and finally as human being the brain must also grow correspondingly to store larges amount of information. This is verified by medical science when we examine the nervous system and brain structure of animals and human beings
Plants do not have a nervous system and brain; the hormones regulate the body functions. The hormones control the chemical activity in cells, growth and flowering. All this is possible with minimum amount of consciousness and knowledge. In the higher stage of evolution the body has a nervous system. The simplest possible creature has incredible simple nervous system made up of nothing but reflex pathways. For example, flatworms, two sense organism, and invertebrates, having up to four senses, do not have a centralized brain. They have a loose association of neurons arranged in simple reflex pathways. Flatworms have neural nets; individual neurons linked together that form a net around the entire animal.
Most invertebrates (such as lobster) have simple brains that consist of localized collections of neuronal cell bodies called ganglia. Each ganglia controls sensory and motor functions in its segment through reflex pathways, and the ganglia are linked together to form a simple neuron system.
As neuron system evolved, chain of ganglia evolved into more centralized brain. Brains of invertebrates evolved from ganglia.
Regardless of the animal, brains have the following parts:
1. Brainstem - The brainstem consists of the Medulla, Pons and Midbrain (lower animals have only a Medulla). The brain stem controls the reflexes and automatic functions (heart rate, BP), limb movement and visceral functions (digestion, urination).
2. Cerebellum - The cerebellum integrates information from the vestibule system that indicates position and movement and uses this information to coordinate limb movements.
3. Hypothalamus and Pituitary Gland - These control visceral functions, body temperature and behavioral responses such as feeding, drinking, sexual response, aggression and pleasure.
4. Cerebrum (Cortex) - The cerebrum consists of the cortex etc. If integrates information from all the sense organs, initiates motor functions, controls emotions, and holds memory and thought process (emotional expressions and thinking are more prevalent in higher animals).
As you proceed from fishes towards humans, the cortex gets bigger, takes up a larger portion of the total brain and becomes folded. The enlarged cortex takes an additional higher - order functions, such as information processing, speech, thought and memory. In addition, the part of the lower brain called the thalamus evolved to help relay information from the brainstem and spinal cord to the cerebral cortex.
Lower animals (fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds) do not do much thinking, but instead concern themselves with everyday business of gathering food, eating, drinking, sleeping, reproducing and defending them. Therefore, their brains reflect the major centers that control these functions. We perform these functions as well, and so have a reptilian brain built into us. The basic lower brain consists of the spinal cord, brainstem, and diencephalons (i.e. Medulla, Pons, Midbrain, Thalamus, and Hypothalamus).
Three groups of animals have notably complex brains: the arthropods (insects, crustaceans, arachnids, and others), the cephalopods (octopuses, squids, and similar mollusks), and the craniates (vertebrates and hagfish). The brain of arthropods and cephalopods arises from thin parallel nerve cords that extend through the body of the animal. Arthropods have a central brain with three divisions and large optical lobes behind each eye for visual processing.
The brain of craniates develops from the anterior of a single dorsal nerve cord, which later becomes the spinal cord. In craniates, the bones of the skull protect the brain. Primitive vertebrates such as fish, reptiles, and amphibians have fewer than six layers of neurons in the outer layer of their brains. More complex vertebrates such as mammals have a six-layered neo cortex, in addition to having some parts of the brain that are allocortex. In mammals, increasing convolutions of the brain are characteristic of animals with more advanced brains. These convolutions provide a larger surface area for a greater number of neurons while keeping the volume of the brain compact enough to fit inside the skill.
In insects, the brain has four parts, the optical lobe, the protocerebrum, the deutocerebrum, and the tritocerebrum. The optical lobes are located behind each eye and process visual stimuli. The protocerebrum contains the mushroom bodies, which respond to smell, and the central body complex. In some species such as bees, the mushroom body receives input from the visual pathway as well. The deutocerebrum includes the antennal lobes, which are similar to the mammalian olfactory bulb, and the mechano-sensory neuropilus, which receive information from, touch receptors on the head and antennae. The antennal lobes of flies and moths are quit complex. In cephalopods, the brain has two regions: supraesophageal mass and subesophageal mass, separated by the esophagus.
In mammalian brain, the cerebrum is the largest region. In humans and several other animals, the fissures and convolutions give the brain a wrinkled appearance. In non-mammalian vertebrates with no cerebrum, the metencephalon is the highest center in the brain. Generally, comparing the locations of certain structures between humans and other vertebrates often reveal number of differences. Behind (or in humans, below) the cerebrum is the cerebellum. The cerebellum is known to be involved in the control of movement, and is connected by thick white matter fibers to the pons. The cerebrum and the cerebellum each have two hemispheres.
The structure of human brain differs from that of other animals in several important ways. These differences allow for many abilities over and above those of other animals, such as advanced cognitive skills. Human encephalization is especially pronounced in the neocortex, the most complex part of the cerebral cortex. The proportion of the prefrontal cortex is larger than in all other mammals (indeed larger than in all animals, although only in mammals has the neocortex evolved to fulfill this kind of function).
Humans have unique neural capacities, but much of their brain structure is similar to that of other mammals. Basic systems that alert the nervous system to stimulus, that sense events in the environment, and monitor the condition of the body are similar to those of even non-mammalian vertebrates. The neural circuitry underlying human consciousness includes both the advanced neocortex and prototypical structures of the brain stem. The human brain also has a massive number of synaptic connections allowing for a great deal of parallel processing. The human brain contains more than 100 billion neurons, each linked to as many as 10000 others.
The surface area of the brain is about 1500 to 2000 square centimeters, which is about the size of one to two pages of a newspaper. The human brain weights 1 to 1.5 kilograms. It has been estimated that the cerebral capacity of the gorilla brain is 1014 bits and that of human brain is 1015 bits. Assuming that 1014 bits is the minimum threshold of information required for self maintenance and reproduction of an organism as complex as gorilla or man, there is in a man a vast reservoir (1015-1014) = 9x1014 bits of cerebral power available for his practice of language, science, technology, spirituality and other cultural pursuits. If this happens that while only 10% of this cerebral capacity suffices to perform all the physiological functions of his animal existence, the remainder 90% enables him to become what he is, namely homosapien - man the wise.
Brain also produces a portion of the body's hormones that can influence organs and glands elsewhere in a body - conversely, the brain also reacts to hormones produced elsewhere in the body. In mammals, the hormones that regulate hormone production throughout the body are produced in the brain by the pituitary gland.
We see from above that development of brain is related to evolution of soul. One-sense plants have no brain, worms have neural net and invertebrates have ganglia. Brain is developed in five sense animals and its complexity increases from lower order to higher order animals. The human brain is the most complex. Thus as soul evolves with increasing consciousness he possesses a body with increasingly complex mind. A corollary of this is that a soul with low consciousness cannot occupy a body having a complex brain, which is suitable for soul with high consciousness. For instance, a soul having ant's body cannot jump the order and occupy a human body. A soul has to gradually evolve step by step as his consciousness increases. In other words the evolution is driven by consciousness or karma. The small nano organisms are at the bottom and humans are at the top of the ladder of evolution.
We have some knowledge about how karma operates. According to Jain Philosophy the decision of species in the next life is made in the present life. This decision is made by the soul based on the level of consciousness and the merit and demerits an individual has earned in this life. This decision and all other information are stored in the karma body. The karma body is attached to the soul, which after death starts a new life in the next body. The next life begins from a cell. As per scriptures the first food of life is called ohja ahara or luminous food. This implies that the soul owns the cell and receives its bioelectricity as the first food. Jain philosophy also provides that the six bio potentials are accomplished within one Indian hour of conception. It means that all the information regarding formation of six important systems in the body is recorded on the DNA in few minutes after conception. We know that only 10 percent of DNA contain protein-making instructions and the remaining 90 percent part has regulatory function. Russian research indicates that this major part of DNA acts like a language. The information from the karma body is perhaps transferred to this part of DNA, which appears like a language. So, the DNA now contains a blue print of the body to be constructed. If the complete information on all the six bio potentials is not correctly transferred, the body shall be underdeveloped having deficiency in parts or organs corresponding to the missing information.
The karma body has some features of a hologram. Like a hologram every pradesa of the soul, and hence every part of the karma body, contains all the karma. Also the karma body can store vast amount of information, it has memories of all the past lives. Akin to hologram, karma body can easily encode and decode frequencies and bond and de-bond karma. The chromosomes are thought to behave as holographic computers. So then there are trillions of holographic computers in a human body each carrying the complete information of past and present life? This is same as saying that the soul has countless pradesas; each pradesa has all the karmas. The karmas direct, instruct and motivate genetic codes and the genes function and mutate accordingly. Thus karmas are the cause and the genes are their effect. Besides karmas the genes are also influenced by environment around it, cell nutrition wrapped around genes and the temperature of the light. It is believed that in developed complex beings during a certain time only up to 2-15% genes remain active.
Gene spacing is also important. Prokaryotic genomes are very small with little space between genes. The gene spacing increases with complexity of the organisms. Actually it is the spacing and not the genes that determine the complexity of the organism. In higher organisms (animals and plants, rather than bacteria and viruses) the non-code sequences out number the coding ones by a factor of ten or more. A large non-coding region enables storage of large amount of information for a complex body.
According to scientific view chromosome 1 contains record of past lives, chromosome 2 contains the history of journey leading to human life, and chromosome 3 contains evidences for the entire past history and chromosome 4 contains information about the future. According to Jain philosophy all this information is stored in the karma body. It is on this basis that a soul is classified as bhavya, capable of salvation and abhavya not capable of salvation. It means that the blue print of evolution and development of consciousness exists in the karma body of the nano organism from where the life starts. The evolution takes place according to this blue print under the influence of environmental factors. The consciousness may exercise control on genes through holographic computers. The genes are the hardware, holographic computers the software and consciousness is the source of intelligence. The ultimate control rests with the consciousness.
We now revert back to the question of natural selection; to what extent it is responsible for evolution at all stages. According to Jain philosophy one to four sense organisms are produced by the process of agglutination and are supposed to be hemophrodite. The consciousness of these organisms is also of low level. No womb is required for birth; the birth can take place in open. The soul collects material from the surroundings to construct the body. This means that natural forces have a dominant role in the construction of body at this stage. So, natural selection is expected to play primary role in evolution in early part of life. As consciousness increases natural selection becomes less effective, and at the stage of five- sense organism natural selection might play only a marginal role and it may have no role at all in evolution of humans. Pandit Sriram Sharma is right that human beings are successor of deities and not animals. It is quite probable that alien deities may have visited Earth and established some kind of relationship with the local habitants. According to Jain philosophy the mansion dwelling celestial beings live in middle loka. We know that five sense animals and humans, particularly the humans, have a developed mind, a feature that is radically distinct from normal physical structure, and such a feature is not likely to have a material origin.
Higher order organisms having five senses need womb for birth where a controlled environment exists for formation of highly sensitive information intensive nervous system in which consciousness must play a major role. Thus it appears that in lower order organisms, up to four senses, the natural forces are predominant and in higher order organisms having developed mental faculty, the consciousness prevails over natural forces. All mechanisms of evolution, mutation, linkage, heterozygosis, recombination, gene flow, population structure, drift, natural selection and adoption are effective for lower organisms. Further research is needed to scientifically confirm evolution of higher order five sense organisms.
Based on these observations we postulate an evolution hypothesis.
