Philosophy In Jain Agams: Tejaskāya (Fire-Bodied Beings)

Jain philosophy considers fire as a living being. Beings whose bodies are made of fire itself are known as fire bodied living beings. Fire, spark, cinder and meteorite etc. are different types of fire bodies. One who does not accept the existence of these living beings is also a denier of his own existence.^[1] Due to their subtleness, fire bodied beings are not recognizable or perceivable by the senses. The main source of approval of their existence is the preaching of Tīrthaṅkara, omniscients, however many commentators of the āgamas presented various other logics to prove life in them.

Logic for Establishing the existence of the soul in Tejaskāya

Even as the corporeal mass of the glow-worm shines as light in the night, exactly so the lighting power in the fire is inferred as originating from a particular transformation in the fire-bodied beings. As the heat of fever is not separate from the fevered, exactly so on account of its heat (temperature), fire is also inferred as a variety of living being.^[2] In the ĀcārāṅgaVṛtti also, the following argument is given in favour of fire as a sentient entity. Fire grows on the supply of fuel and diminishes and extinguishes in the absence of it.^[3] Modern thinkers admit that fire cannot keep burning without the intake of oxygen.

The fire-bodied beings are entities distinct from other types of sentient beings, on account of their specific body-determining karma, viz., heat-producing and lustre-producing karmas. The body of fire bodied living beings is similar to the needle's point.^[4] The agnikāya is called a sharp weapon.^[5] It destroys living beings from all sides.

Weapon for the Fire-bodied beings

The Ācārāṅga Niryukti, has enumerated the weapons that injure the fire-bodied beings, as follows:^[6]

1. Soil or sand
2. Water
3. Moist vegetation
4. Mobile creatures
5. Homogeneous weapons: For instance, leaf-fire is the weapon for hay-fire. The hay-fire turns life-less when get in contact with leaf-fire.
6. Heterogeneous weapons: For instance, water (carbon-di-oxide) etc.
7. Mixture of both (fifth and sixth), for instance, fire mixed with chaff and cowdung is the weapon for other types of fire.^[7]