Philosophy In Jain Agams: Consumable and the Consumer

In the universe, there are two substances- Living and non living. Do they mutually exchange something or not? If they do so, who consumes whom? What are the rules of such consumption? All these subjects have been elaborately explained in Bhagavatī. Non living things i.e. matter is consumed or used by the soul.^[1] Soul is the consumer and the matter is consumable. That which is conscious is the receiver and the non-conscious is the receivable.^[2] Soul receives the matter and builds up the five types of body and five senses, undertakes three kind of activities i.e. mind, body, speech, and breathing etc. Thus, the soul is referred to as user or consumer and the matter is a usable or a consumable substance.^[3]

Worldly jīva (mundane soul) is always with the body. When worldly souls receive the matter for body, sense, activities etc. and mental and vocal activities then there are different rules for the reception of matter. For making the audārika (gross), vaikriya (protean) and āhāraka (communication) body, soul consumes both sthita and asthita material clusters.^[4] The space units on which the units of soul are accommodated, the units of matter also present over the same units of space are called as sthita. The units of matter settled beyond those units are called as asthita.^[5] For building the taijasa (luminous) and kārmaṇa (subtle karmic) body, this rule is not applicable. Only sthita units of matter are used for building these two bodies^[6] and the same rule is applied for the mental and vocal activities also.

For physical activities, the rules for audārika body are applied.^[7] Only aggregates of infinite units can be used by the soul. From the view point of area, those aggregates of infinite units of matter must reside in innumerable space units.^[8] This means that if an aggregate of infinite units of matter resides on one, two to numerable units of space then soul cannot receive or use it.

Bhagavatī has referred to Prajñāpanā (28/1) to see details in this context. It reflects that this part of Bhagavatī is written after the Prajñāpanā or we can also hold that while compiling āgamas, Prajñāpanā was compiled before Bhagavatī. That is why reference is given in such fashion. Anyhow, this description found in Bhagavatī is very significant from the point of biology. During the development of the body, questions as to how material for body is gathered, what are the conditions of those materials etc. have been presented very clearly. Studying it in comparison with the modern physiology, can be a good contribution in the field of research.