{"id":142,"date":"2012-02-15T06:52:34","date_gmt":"2012-02-15T05:52:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/?p=142"},"modified":"2012-02-16T23:31:27","modified_gmt":"2012-02-16T22:31:27","slug":"modes-of-birth-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/modes-of-birth-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Modes of Birth, part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"
The paragraph describing the samm\u016brcchima or agglutination\u00a0mode of birth\u00a0for humans comes from the\u00a0Praj\u00f1\u0101pan\u0101<\/em> Up\u0101\u1e45ga of the Jaina canon. This text preserves some of the oldest of all the teachings found in the Jaina tradition. The most ancient Jaina scriptures, the P\u016brvas, are long lost. They were summarized in the twelfth A\u1e45ga, the D\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e6div\u0101da<\/em>. It, too, is lost, and has been for about 2,000 years. Before its disappearance, however, some of its teachings were\u00a0recorded in the Praj\u00f1\u0101pan\u0101<\/em> (see: prajnapana_and_satkhandagama<\/a>).\u00a0The paragraph on the samm\u016brcchima or agglutination\u00a0mode of birth\u00a0for humans is very likely one of these ancient and mostly lost teachings. We may assume this because, as we have seen,\u00a0the commentator Malayagiri had no words of explanation for it. Apparently no tradition of\u00a0its explanation had been passed down to him. It is as anomalous in Jainism as are the four modes of birth for humans taught in Buddhism, that the commentators had to come up with examples from mythology to explain.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n

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The preceding paragraph in the\u00a0Praj\u00f1\u0101pan\u0101<\/em> had asked the question, what are humans?; and had answered by saying that there are two kinds, samm\u016brcchima humans and those that come from an\u00a0embryo or womb (garbha). The paragraph under discussion describes the samm\u016brcchima
\nhumans, those born by agglutination, also called spontaneous generation. Although Nathmal\u00a0Tatia did not tell us\u00a0that his source was the Praj\u00f1\u0101pan\u0101<\/em>, it was; and the statement that he made about these humans\u00a0closely follows the text of this paragraph. “The humans born of agglutination originate in human excreta such as faeces, urine, sputum, mucus, vomit, bile, pus, blood, semen, etc.” Besides these nine, this paragraph gives four more. These are even stranger, and also more obscure. The listing given in this paragraph\u00a0is as follows. They are all declined in the locative plural, but I have given their undeclined forms, except in one case. I have added hyphens to divide the words in compounds.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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1. Pkt. ucc\u0101ra; Skt. ucc\u0101ra; Eng. feces.<\/span><\/div>\n
2. Pkt. p\u0101sava\u1e47a; Skt. prasrava\u1e47a; Eng. urine.<\/span><\/div>\n
3. Pkt. khela; Skt. \u015ble\u1e63ma; Eng. saliva (glossed in the\u00a0Abhidh\u0101na-R\u0101jendra-Ko\u1e63a<\/em> as ka\u1e47\u1e6dha-mukha-\u015ble\u1e63ma\u1e47i, which means “the phlegm of the throat and mouth”).<\/span><\/div>\n
4. Pkt. si\u1e43gh\u0101\u1e47a; Skt. \u015ble\u1e63ma; Eng. nasal mucus (glossed in the\u00a0Abhidh\u0101na-R\u0101jendra-Ko\u1e63a<\/em> as n\u0101\u015bik\u0101-\u015ble\u1e63ma\u1e47i, which means “the phlegm of the nose”).<\/span><\/div>\n
5. Pkt. va\u1e43ta; Skt. v\u0101nta; Eng. vomit.<\/span><\/div>\n
6. Pkt. pitta; Skt. pitta; Eng. bile.<\/span><\/div>\n
7. Pkt. p\u016bya; Skt. p\u016bya; Eng. pus.<\/span><\/div>\n
8. Pkt. so\u1e47iya; Skt. \u015bo\u1e47ita; Eng. blood.<\/span><\/div>\n
9. Pkt. sukka; Skt. \u015bukra; Eng. semen.<\/span><\/div>\n
10. Pkt. sukka-poggala-paris\u0101\u1e0da; Skt. \u015bukra-pudgala-pari\u015b\u0101\u1e6da; Eng. loss of semen matter.<\/span><\/div>\n
11. Pkt. vigaya-j\u012bva-kalevara; Skt. vigata-j\u012bva-kalevara; Eng. a body from which life has departed.<\/span><\/div>\n
12. Pkt. th\u012b-purisa-sa\u1e43joesu (declined); Skt. str\u012b-puru\u1e63a-sa\u1e43yoga; Eng. the joining of female and male.<\/span><\/div>\n
13. Pkt. \u1e47agara-\u1e47iddhama\u1e47a; Skt. nagara-nirdhamana; Eng. literally the blowing away, or derivatively the piping away, from a town; apparently a city sewer (glossed in the index as nagara-jal\u0101di-nirgamana-m\u0101rga, which means “the pathway for the going out of water, etc., from a town”).\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The excellent critical edition of the\u00a0Praj\u00f1\u0101pan\u0101<\/em> or Pa\u1e47\u1e47ava\u1e47\u0101sutta\u1e41<\/em> from the Jaina-\u0100gama-Series adds another one\u00a0between the twelfth and\u00a0thirteenth. It is: g\u0101ma-\u1e47iddhama\u1e47a (= Skt. gr\u0101ma-nirdhamana). It is not found in other editions of the Praj\u00f1\u0101pan\u0101<\/em>, but rather is added from a quotation of this paragraph found in Malayagiri’s commentary on the Nand\u012b-s\u016btra<\/em>. However, as may be seen, it is practically identical with no. 13, the only difference being the change of one word for town, nagara, to another word for town, gr\u0101ma. In textual criticism, this is easily explained as a gloss written in the margin of a manuscript, that was incorporated into the main\u00a0text the next time the manuscript was copied. That is, the next scribe understood it as supplying an omission in the text rather than as a gloss of the text. In any case, the text concludes the list\u00a0by indicating that these are some among many. So there are more than thirteen.<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The paragraph describing the samm\u016brcchima or agglutination\u00a0mode of birth\u00a0for humans comes from the\u00a0Praj\u00f1\u0101pan\u0101 Up\u0101\u1e45ga of the Jaina canon. This text preserves some of the oldest of all the teachings found in the Jaina tradition. The most ancient Jaina scriptures, the P\u016brvas, are long lost. They were summarized in the twelfth A\u1e45ga, the D\u1e5b\u1e63\u1e6div\u0101da. It, too, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropogenesis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions\/144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}