The Doctrine of the Jainas, Described after the Old Sources c8.76

c8.76

§66. We now come to speak of the bodily functions. Breathing is called *āṇamai pāṇamai*¹ *ūsāsai nīsāsai*. While the first two words express the inward activity, the last two refer to the outward one (Prajn. 220 b). Unexceptionally all beings breathe (Pannav. 7), but the intervals will be the longer the higher they stand. Thus the inhabitants of hell breathe incessantly,² whereas the highest Vemāṇiya breathes every 33 fortnights only; but animals furnished with one to five senses and human beings follow different ways of breathing (*vemāyāe*). As we learn from Viy. 274b in contrast to Tand. 3b, the frequency of breathing is the same with the embryo as it is with the fully developed man, and he will retain this frequency for the whole time of his life, i.e. 3773 in 1 *muhutta*. So, then, respiration (*ussāsa-nissāsa* or *pāṇa*) comes to be a time-measure. While the breathing of beings having two to five senses was accepted as an established fact (*jānāmo pāsāmo*), it seemed problematic with regard to elemental beings and plants, but it is explicitly stated to apply to them as well (Viy. 109a), and, moreover, Viy. 109b continues in saying that "breathing" embraces all possible matter (*davvāim*). This statement is as surprising as the adjoining and incorrect reference to Pannav. 28 (the Āhāra-paya). A windbody (*vāuyāya*) breathes his own kind, and even though by inhaling its own the same has perished (*uddaittā*) in it a many hundred thousand times, it will yet reappear on and again (*paccāyāi*, Viy. 110a).¹ In some other connexion we are told that the elemental as well as the vegetable beings inhale and exhale each other (Viy. 419b).²