Dr. N.L. Kachhara
The powers of the soul provide the force for biological evolution. A soul in any life form enjoys some bonded karma. Going through several births, the soul reduces its karma load and increases its level of manifested intelligence. With an enhanced level of intelligence, the soul is in a position to take the form of a species with a higher biological complexity. The soul may take billions of years to get out of the stage of a microorganism. In the next phase of development, the soul acquires a plant body, which also has one sense of touch. Plants produce oxygen and make the atmosphere suitable for higher forms of life.
In the first part of biological evolution, different species with one sense, touch, are progressively and spontaneously produced by the power of the soul. After going through births in the form of various one-sense species, the soul intelligence is in a position to design the body of a higher organism with two senses, touch and taste, again spontaneously by the process of agglutination. Jainism describes that organisms with up to four senses (invertebrates) have spontaneous births by agglutination. It may be noted that worms, etc. are two-sense; ants, etc. are three-sense (touch, taste, smell); and mosquitoes, flies and other insects are four-sense (touch, taste, smell, sight) organisms. Marine creatures like fish, etc., all kinds of birds, terrestrial animals, and human beings are five-sense creatures (vertebrates) and are endowed with mind. Five-sense beings may take birth by both sexual and asexual methods (cloning is a method of asexual birth).
We have some idea how the intelligence of the soul is fundamental to the process of evolution. On the fruition of karma, the karma body continuously emits radiation, known as adhyvasaya, which interacts with the cells and body systems. The karmas transmit the intelligence of the soul through these adhyvasaya and provide the psycho-physical forces that operate the body system (as discussed in chapter 3). The radiation from rising biological karma is responsible for constructing, developing and maintaining the body, its disorders, malfunctioning and other kind of variations, producing pain and pleasure, general physical health, and lifespan. DNA contains a code and stores information. This is like the operating software. The karma body contains the plan and code for constructing the cells, tissues, organs, body parts and systems of the body of a given species in accordance with the karma bonded in the previous life. The karma body is seen to contain the application software, which in conjunction with the operating software of DNA produces the form of the body structure of a particular species. It is known that DNA is influenced by words and frequencies. The karma radiation must interact with the DNA to produce the structure suitable for the species dictated by the law of karma. It must be emphasized that DNA alone cannot accomplish evolution, as assumed by scientists. Both kinds of software are necessary for the formation of the body. A cell separated from the body retains the operating software and is able to divide, but in the absence of the application software it cannot construct a tissue or an organ. If a replicating cell can be produced artificially, it would contain only the operating software: it cannot organize to form body parts until a soul containing intelligence and the application software enters it. It must be emphasized that the intelligence of the soul uses the DNA bricks to construct the body, as per the plan provided by karma.
Jainism accepts biological evolution but links it to the process of the development of the soul. The power of the soul is the main force behind evolution; natural forces have a helping role. The karma scheme is general and covers a wide variation of shape, size, structural features, color, etc. of any species. Variation in the features of a species is admitted in Jainism on the basis of the manifestation of intelligence, depending on the working of environmental factors.
As the soul evolves from one-sense to five-sense animals and finally to a human being, the brain must also grow correspondingly to store larger amounts 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; hormones regulate all body functions. The hormones control chemical activity in the cells, including growth and flowering. All this is possible with a minimum amount of consciousness and intelligence. In the higher stages of evolution, the body has a nervous system. The simplest possible creature has an incredibly simple nervous system made up of nothing but reflex pathways. For example, flatworms, two-sense organisms, and invertebrates with 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, or individual neurons linked together to form a net around the entire animal.
Most invertebrates (such as lobsters) 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 the neuron system evolved, chains of ganglia evolved into more centralized brain. Brains of invertebrates evolved from ganglia.
As we 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 on 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. 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 skull.
The structure of the 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 neo-cortex, 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 neo-cortex evolved to fulfill this kind of function).
We see that the structure of the brain is related to the development of the soul. One-sense plants have no brain, worms have a neural net and invertebrates have ganglia. The 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 the soul develops with increasing intelligence, it possesses a form with an increasingly complex brain. A corollary of this is that a soul with low intelligence cannot possess a form with a complex brain, which is only suitable for a soul with higher intelligence. For instance, a soul with an ant's body cannot normally jump to a human body. A soul has to gradually develop as its intelligence increases. In other words, evolution is driven by intelligence or the law of karma. Small microorganisms are at the bottom and humans are at the top of the ladder.
How many body forms or designs of species can the soul produce? The soul is the perfect designer and produces designs that give optimum performance in all respects for the given level of intelligence. At the minimum level of intelligence, bodies with only one sense (touch) are designed; as the level of intelligence increases, more senses are incorporated into the design. According to Jain philosophy, the soul produces a total of 8.4 million designs for species, yoni, with the simplest being the sub-microorganism (nigoda) and the highest the human being. Variations of each design are possible, and the total number of variants, known as kula, is 20.05 million. Each design is unique; it has an optimum configuration of features that are specific to that form. Each design has an irreducible complexity that increases from the lower to the higher organisms. Each body form and its design is a marvel of the highest order and exhibits features that are mind-boggling and beyond human comprehension.
The development of the soul does not stop with the end of biological evolution. Biological evolution is the first part of the development of the soul in which the soul acquires sense capabilities that are essential for further development, which is mainly spiritual. It is important to note that biological evolution and the development of the soul are apparently similar, but the concepts behind them are fundamentally different. Biological evolution is assumed to be based on the concept of natural selection, struggle and survival of the fittest, whereas the development of the soul is based on the concept of the eradication of karma, and benevolent acts of cooperation and mutual help and co-existence. These latter features are characteristic of all life forms. Self-defense, which may qualify as a struggle at the individual level, is a need for every living being, but when viewed at a collective level, organisms do help each other and form groups where mutual help and support may override personal convenience. This tendency of mutual help can be seen at all levels of existence. Microorganisms help with the digestion of food in the stomachs of all beings, trees provide food to all creatures, worms assist in agriculture, and ants form communities, bees work for the queen to produce honey, and so on. The struggle for survival is not evident in creatures with up to four senses that do not have a mind. Five-sense beings, which have a mind, are also seen to love and help their offspring, form families and groups, and exhibit a sense of collective survival. All creatures have instincts and work for their fulfillment at an individual level, but they also have a sense of mutual need that limits their individual liberty.
Every organism wants to live; no one wants to die. So, there is a natural tendency in organisms to develop features that help in survival. Survival is affected by environmental conditions and the population of other life forms of that region, and to that extent organisms tend to acquire suitable morphological changes through mutation and other biological processes. This is a force to reckon with in biological evolution but does not constitute the sole reason for change; the intrinsic power of the soul to develop is the main force behind evolution.
The question may be raised as to how the very first member of a higher species, particularly human beings, evolved. It is very likely that births were asexual initially. Jain scriptures mention that in early history humans were born in pairs, male and female, and at the end of their life they gave birth to another pair and so on. These human beings were dependent on trees for all of their requirements and did not have any skills. When the food supplies from forests fell short of demand, agriculture was invented by the first Tirthankara, Rishabhdeva, who as a king also taught other kinds of skills like writing, trading, accounting, defending (fighting) and crafting.
