जै · The Jain Encyclopedia
Abhakṣya 1 to 5 · beings you cannot see

The five figs

पाँच उदुम्बर

Five fruits of the fig family open the verse, and the reason is the reason for meat: they are full of tiny living beings, kṛmi-kulākīrṇa, the epithet the texts use for flesh.

The five are the fruits of five trees of one genus: umbara, the gūlar fig (Ficus glomerata); vaṭa, the banyan (Ficus bengalensis); pippala, the peepal (Ficus religiosa); plakṣa (Ficus infectoria); and kākodumbara, the small fig (Ficus oppositifolia). A fig is a flower turned inward, pollinated by an insect that enters and does not leave; the texts do not say that, but they say what it amounts to: the fruit is a house of small creatures. A pious person, Hemacandra says, avoids them even when hungry and with nothing else to eat.

In the older texts the figs are not counted among the common bodies, though a sixteenth-century Digambara writer takes the word udumbara as standing for them all. With the three ma-kāras they make the eightfold ban; the four vikṛtis entry has the rest of that.

The twenty-two, laid by their reasonsPravacanasāroddhāra 245–246 - the verse still recited, bāvīs abhakṣyathe sectors are the commentary's reasons, sized by count; the numbers on the bowls are the verse'sthirteen of the twenty-two are refused for beings you cannot seebeings you cannot seein it, or arising in it13beings without numbera soul in every seed, or infinite in one body3the elements, rawwater and earth, for no need3the eater, or unweighableharm to oneself, or what cannot be judged3the five figsthe four vikṛtis1umbarathe gūlar fig2vaṭathe banyan fig3pippalathe peepal fig4plakṣathe plakṣa fig5kākodumbarathe small fig6madhuhoney7navanītabutter8madyawine9māṃsameat14rātri-bhojanathe night meal17sandhānapickles18ghola-vaṭakapulse in raw curd22calita-rasafood that has turned15bahu-bījamany-seeded fruit16ananta-kāyathe common bodies19vṛntākabrinjal10himasnow12karakahail13mṛdearth11viṣapoison20amuṇiya phulla-phalaunknown fruit, flowers21tuccha-phalaempty fruit22bāvīs abhakṣyaPravacanasāroddhāra 245–246
The twenty-two, laid by their reasons - The five figs highlighted

Measurements and counts

Place in the verse1 to 5 - pañc'-umbari
The fiveumbara · vaṭa · pippala · plakṣa · kākodumbara
GenusFicus, all five
Reasonfull of tiny living beings

Connected

Open in the interactive atlas →

समयं गोयम! मा पमायए

Do not be heedless, Gautama, for even a single samaya.

Uttarādhyayana Sūtra 10