जै · The Jain Encyclopedia
Gommaṭasāra 196

One body, every siddha

एक निगोद शरीर · सर्व सिद्ध

The souls in one nigoda body, seen by the omniscient, are infinite times the number of all the souls that have ever been liberated. Everything that has ever reached Siddhaśilā is a vanishing fraction of one of the smallest bodies there is.

Gommaṭasāra 196, in Johnson's rendering of the Sacred Books of the Jainas: from the substance point of view, the souls in one nigoda body, seen by the omniscient, are infinite times the number of all the liberated. The siddhas are themselves infinite — the atlas ranks them on its ladder of infinities — and one body outnumbers them infinitely.

The map draws it plainly: a dot for every siddha there has ever been, and beside it a bar for one body that runs off the frame. It is the one figure in this section that needs no arithmetic, and the one the tradition means you to sit with.

the lokaskandhaas Jambūdvīpa× asaṃkhyātaaṇḍaraas Bharata× asaṃkhyātaāvāsaas Kośala× asaṃkhyātapulavias Sāketa× asaṃkhyātaone bodyas a houseananta soulsthe nesting — Gommaṭasāra 164–165, the Digambara text's structureeach level holds asaṃkhyāta × the loka's space-points of the nextthe 563 kinds of living being — Jīva-vicāra22 · 6 · 20 · 303 · 198 · 14four are nigoda — and hold infinitely more souls than the other 559one breath: seventeen lives and a fraction, each 256 āvalikā65,536 in a muhūrta — the teachers say seventeen and a halfavyavahāra-rāśinever once trasa · infinitevyavahāra-rāśibeen out, come backSiddhaśilā608 liberated in six months and eight samayas608 leave the first heap in their placethe ledger — the commentators on Gommaṭasāra 197, and the thokaḍāevery siddha there has ever beenthe souls in one nigoda body — infinite times as many, off the frameNigoda: the smallest body, the most soulsa body too small to see, in which infinite souls are born, breathe and die togethereverywhere in the loka; four of the 563 kinds of living beingone body holds infinite times every siddha there has ever been — Gommaṭasāra 196608souls liberated, and 608 out of nigoda, every six months and eight samayas
Nigoda: the smallest body, the most souls — One body, every siddha highlighted

Measurements and counts

One bodyinfinite × all the siddhas
All the siddhasinfinite — see the ladder
Never to leaveinfinite souls — Gommaṭasāra 197
SourceGommaṭasāra Jīvakāṇḍa 196 — Digambara; nothing Śvetāmbara differs

Connected

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समयं गोयम! मा पमायए

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

Uttarādhyayana Sūtra 10