Jan 29, 2004, 08.14pm IST
Amrit Gangar.
Jaina ‘soul’ metaphysics has an interesting colour-code called lesya, a unique concept in the phenomeno-logy of karma. The special aura of the soul can be described in terms of colour, smell, touch or taste indicating the stages of spiritual progress of a living being, whether human, animal, demonic or divine.
Lesya is determined by the adherence of karmic matter to jiva or soul, resulting from both good and bad actions. This adherence is compared to the way dust particles adhere to an oil-smeared body.
The jiva is classified according to the good or bad emotions that hold sway. The salesi or lesya-prone are all those who are swayed by emotion, and the alesi are liberated beings or siddhas who no longer experience feelings, of either pain or pleasure.
Lesya, according to the Sutra-kritanga, is a term that signifies colour (in Sanskrit, ‘light’ or ‘tint’). Jaina scholar K C Jain says: ‘‘The Aji-vika expression Chalabhitiya as explained by Buddhaghosha implies the same method of classification of men in terms of six colours.’’ Prof H Jacobi says Mahavira borrowed the idea of the six lesyas from the ajivikas and altered it to bring it into harmony with the rest of his own doctrines. As hinted in the Acharanga Sutra, the classification of living beings in terms of six colours could be traced back to Parsva’s doctrine of six jivanikayas.
Depending on the karmic density, the colour scheme for the six lesyas include taste, smell and touch. There are variations in colour decoding by diffe- rent scholars though essentially they imply the same meaning.
The black lesya, for instance, has the colour of a rain cloud, a buffalo’s horn, or is a shade darker than the colour of collyrium. The blue lesya is the colour of the red-flowered blue Asoka tree. The grey lesya is the colour of the pigeon’s neck or ash. The red lesya is the colour of vermilion or red lead. The yellow lesya is coloured like the orpiment or turmeric. The white lesya is the colour of a conch.
The taste of the black lesya is more bitter than that of neem leaves; that of the blue lesya is worse than that of a wild thorn, the grey lesya is sour; the red lesya is sour-sweet; the yellow lesya is sweet as honey while the white lesya tastes sweeter than sugar. The smell of the three bad lesyas is infinitely worse than that of a dead cow, dog or snake. The smell of the three good lesyas is infinitely more pleasant than that of fragrant flowers or pleasant perfumes.
The touch of the bad lesyas is worse than that of a saw, the tongue of a cow, or the leaf of the teak tree. The touch of the three good lesyas is more pleasant and softer than that of cotton, butter or the Sirisha flower.
The six tinges suggest an ascen-ding order of purity, black being the worst and white being the best. Jainism scholar and the author of Kalpa Sutra, K C Lalwani says: ‘‘Six persons with these six tinges desire to eat the fruits of a tree. How would they behave? The person with the black tinge will cut the tree at the very root. The one with the blue tinge will chop its branches. The one with the ash tinge will cut the branch bearing the fruit for his consumption. The one with the red tinge will pluck all the fruits, ripe or not. The one with the pink tinge will pluck only the ripe fruits. The one with the white tinge will take only those ripe fruits that have dropped on the ground.” Lesya, in this sense, is a subjective inclination that induces the soul to activity and imparts to jiva a certain tinge.
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