One Sensed Jīvās (Souls)

One Sensed Jīvās (Souls)

To uphold the moral, ethical, mental and physical values of civilized society, the Jain ethical values have paid the highest regards to all forms of life. According to Jain doctrine, souls exist not only in human beings and animals, but also in lumps of earth, in drops of water, in the flame of fire, in the wind and in the vegetation. It maintains that these five kinds of immobile beings are one sensed jīvās i.e. having a sensation of touch only. They experience any violence caused to them just as experienced by a human being. Therefore, Jain doctrine strongly advocates that one must refrain from destroying them. Jain philosophy has been invoking such a commitment as an integral part of society so that human beings do not tinker with the semblance of nature i.e. the embodied souls of earth, water, etc. The Jains have cultivated the practice to live non-violently with nature, and helped in protecting environment and ecology. Jain seers attach great importance to the welfare of plants and other one sensed jīvās and produced sacred laws for the care of the natural world. By postulating animated character of the plants and other one sensed jīvās, Jain teachings were both ahead of their times and the predecessors of today's environmental concern with ecological balance.

It has also given message of shunning violence, which has provided universal appeal. In fact, this concept of one-sensed living beings is unique to Jains and found neither in any other religion nor in scientific spheres. Hence, let us study the peculiarity of one-sensed jīvās and their animated nature.

The Jain scriptures acknowledge the existence of one-sensed living beings (jīvās). Jain Siddhānta Dīpīkā (Illuminator of Jain Tenets) mentions as follows:

Pŗthvī-apa-tejo-vāyu-vanaspatikāyikā-ekandriyāħ sthavarā ^[1]

The one-sensed being viz. earth bodies, water-bodies, fire-bodies, air bodies and plants are immobile living beings.

Tattvārtha Sūtra mentions similar to that of Dīpīkā but with little difference. Tattvārtha Sūtra considers Fire and Air living beings as mobile. The sutra is:

 Pŗthvīvyambūvanaspatayāħ sthavarā ^[2]

Earth bodies, water bodies, fire bodies and plants are immobile souls.

 Tejovayudvīndriyadayāśca trasāħ ^[3]

One-sensed fire bodies and air bodies, besides two- or more sensed beings are mobile ones.

Ācāranga Sutra3 logically describes in detail that one-sensed living beings have a sensation of pain and grief if any weapon is used against them. They have enough in-built intelligence (consciousness) to self-perpetuate and thus are treated as bios. Jain scriptures therefore advise against the indiscriminate use of water, plants, trees and minerals thus to maintain the purity of the environment.

Sensory Classification based on sensory Organs

It is well known that a human body has five senses. They are:

1. Ear
2. Eye
3. Nose
4. Tongue
5. Skin

Their characters are as follows:

1. Ear to Hear
2. Eye to See
3. Nose to Smell
4. Tongue to Taste
5. Skin to Touch

It is through our senses that we experience the consciousness of life. The keen the senses, the more alive we feel, the more joy, pleasure, pain, grief, ecstasy i.e. continuum of life.

Jain Philosophy provides sensory based classification as follows:

1. Living beings with five senses of touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing.
   Examples are human beings, reptiles, birds, fish, amphibians and all mammals.
   
   
2. Living beings with four senses of touch, taste, smell and sight.
   Examples are bees, butterflies, spiders, scorpions and other insects.
   
   
3. Living beings with three senses of touch, taste and smell.
   Examples are ants, lice and snails.
   
   
4. Living beings with two senses of touch and taste.
   Examples are worms and marine mollusks.
   
   
5. Living beings with one physical sense of touch.
   They are of five types:
   
   

1	Prīthvīkāya	Earth bodies	examples are gems, salt, soil, minerals etc.	They are in solid state.
2	Apkāya	Water bodies	examples are dew, water fog, rain, lake water, sea water etc.	They are in liquid state.
3	Tejaskāya	Fire bodies	examples are fire, flame, lightening, meteor, electrical spark etc.	They are in energy state
4	Vāyukāya	Air bodies	examples are wind, circular air etc.	They are in gaseous state.
5	Vanaspatikāya	Floral bodies	Vanaspati and plant life exist in two forms,	individual-bodied and common-bodied.

Individual Bodies

They have one soul in one body hence they are known as individual bodied, Vanaspati.
Examples are fruits, grains, leaves, flowers etc.

Common Bodies

They possess a common body for a number of souls. This type of vanaspati has a common medium of inspiration and respiration, assimilation of food and the like. Examples are of root vegetables, sprouted pulses and freshly sprouted leaves. Common bodied souls are also known as nīgodā. The term 'nīgodā ' is very much significant in Jain literature. It is believed that every soul starts its journey from the nīgodā state. They may be considered as unicellular organism. They are the earliest form of life. Later on the soul develops progressively from one sensed jivā to five sensed jīvā. This concept of nīgodā jīvā in Jain literature seems to be purely metaphysical in nature. The soul in the form of nīgodā remains for infinite period.

In order to understand the nature of one-sensed living beings, another classification has been described in Jain literature. Jains have classified life forms in two categories:

• Itinerant - (mobile)
• Motionless - (immobile)

Mobile Living Beings

Those, which can move for the sake of accepting what is wholesome and rejecting what is unwholesome are mobile; the others are called immobile. Mobile living beings are those who have more than one physical sense. Their senses vary between two and five senses.

Immobile Living Beings

Jains believe that each of earth, water, fire, air and floral beings are of one sense that is of touch and are immobile-motionless in nature. One-sensed living beings pervade the whole universe and are invisible. The gross living beings with one sense can be experienced by the sense organs and are present only in part of the universe. Jain scriptures have classified immobile living beings further into twenty-two types. Jain literature provides enough information regarding the existence of one-sensed living beings. Sometimes Jainism has been misunderstood and characterized as animistic by some scholars, but a careful study of the Jain scriptures shows this to be an inadequate assessment.

Animate Nature

The animated nature of the one-sensed earth-bodied beings and the like is to be proved. The animated nature can be proved by the testimony of the omniscient.

Jain Scripture Says ^[4]

“Are the earth bodied beings and the like, O Lord, possessed of determinate consciousness or indeterminate consciousness?”
“O, Gautama, possessed of determinate consciousness as well as indeterminate consciousness." ^[5]

Here, determinate means knowledge and indeterminate means intuition. Lord Mahāvīra was omniscient. So he could know the nature of existence. Hence there cannot be any doubt regarding the animate nature of one-sensed living beings. According to modern science, the qualities of adaptability, sensitivity, mobility, stimulation, metabolism, growth, evolution and reproduction are found in every living being. The qualities of one-sensed jīvā accepted by Jain philosophy are the same as these, characters like doer, enjoyer and consciousness.

A doubt comes to the mind, is there a soul in the earth? Mahāvīra has not only ascertained consciousness in earthly and other immobile one sensed jīvās but also has described their experience of pain as equal to that of a blind man (Ācāranga Sutra- 1/28). Like a blind man, the earthly jīvās also have respiration, pain, ageing, grief and excitement (Ācāranga Bhāşya 37-41).

As is commonly known, the human acquisition of information is sharply departmentalized. Each of the five sensory organs performs only specified tasks, which seldom are interchangeable. Scientists today have found the startling fact that all sensory organs are nothing but transducers, which convert the stimuli into electrical impulse. These electrical signals travel up to the brain through in intricate mechanism of neurons and nerves where they are deciphered by the mind. This opens up interesting possibilities. It may be believed that the entire body of one-sensed jīvā, the sense organ of skin acts as an integrated sensory organ.

The concept that earth, water, fire and air are with life is an exclusive concept of Jain philosophy. In Ācāranga Sutra a deliberation on form, causes and instruments meaning weapons of killing the earth and other immobile jīvās are available.

#	jīvā	weapons
1.	Earth	plough, axe, spade etc.
2.	Water	sprinkling, filtering, cleansing etc.
3.	Fire	sand, water, wet plants etc.
4.	Air	fans, aroma, fire, hostile air etc
5.	Plants	scissors, axe, stone, fire, stick etc.

Contact with hostile weapons makes them dead.

Vanaspatikāya / Plants etc.

Of the five immobile forms of life, the nearest to humans and animals are plants. Plants undergo the process of ageing; they have feelings and are vulnerable to diseases. The only difference is in their immobility. Science and Jainism both postulate the consciousness in plants except that their quanta of consciousness differs. All these similarities are well accepted and proven by science.

Scientific Proof

Though Indian philosophy has always been of the view that plants possess consciousness, for scientific fraternity, the challenge was accepted by none other than an Indian scientist, Jagdish Chandra Basu (Jagadish Chandra Bose). He proved that the chloroplast present in the protoplasm of plants gets excited, when exposed to melody. Professor Vogel went a step ahead and recorded these internal vibrations on a graph. He arrived at the same conclusion that the plants have sensitivity. Floral beings are aware of changes in seasons, they also feel hunger and thirst, and they have their own share of Joy and Sorrow. Another such experiment conducted on tomatoes, revealed that these plants send electrical impulses when bitten by an insect. These impulses are similar to the ones produced in animal reflex nerves. All such experiments have proved beyond doubt that the floral form of life has the consciousness but in a very low magnitude.

Extrapolating on this concept, Bose conducted some experiments on metals and grains. All of them undergo the process of ageing. They have feelings and are vulnerable to diseases. The only difference is in their mobility. All these similarities are well accepted and proven by science. Here both the Jain concept and science agree to a very large extent. Bose could establish that the metal atoms undergo fatigue when under pressure and can be relieved by proper excitation. He found that grain particles, which are presumed to be life-less or dead, in fact, experience euphoria and despair; they also have feelings of jubilation and misery. Finally, he proclaimed that the entire matter in this world have at least some degree of consciousness. Unfortunately, his research disappeared in oblivion due to his untimely death.

The Jain Ācāraya Mahāpragya sees the environment in its entirety. According to him the ecology is sum total of all aspects - sun, planets, stars, earth, humans, animals, plants, oceans, etc. all share a common inseparable bond. Even if a single aspect is affected, the entire environment is handicapped. For instance, when forests are destroyed, they affect rains, deserts creep in and farm output is reduced. All these, in turn, affect our economy and humans are the ultimate victims.

1. This brings us back to fundamental meaning of jīvā and particularly of one-sensed jīvā who experiences a sensation of pain and grief if any weapon is used against them. Jainism, therefore holds strongly, not to destroy the environment of earth, water, fire and floral. It is an exclusive concept in Jain philosophy. In Jain Agamas there is a mention to observe restraint towards one-sensed jīvā. Restraint is very important to maintain a vow of non-violence.
   
   
2. To understand the importance of environmental conservation we should realize that all animals and plants have souls equivalent to the one of humans; the conversion of environment will become a natural fall-out. All concerns of scientific fraternity can be effectively addressed by the acceptance of Acharya Mahaprajna’s principle of Equivalence of Souls. Once this principle is embraced, two powerful things will spontaneously happen:

1. Ahimsa or Negative Compassion
   Not to harm any other souls: human, animal or plant. This is a firmly established and widely accepted tenet of Jainism.
   
   
2. Kindness or Positive Compassion
   Proactive help for others resulting in their benefit. This is a popular principle of socialism.

Science and Spiritualism thus seem to find a cozy confluence in the Principle of Equivalence of Souls. Humans tend to achieve their selfish goals at the cost of others, but the inculcation of positive and negative compassion can transform them to live a selfless life. A human's life is a worth not by what he gets from the environment but from what he gives back to it. The Principle of Equivalence of Souls has the potential to yield universal friendship, which transcends all boundaries of nations and races.