The shortest possible life
Kṣullaka bhava
क्षुल्लक भव
256 āvalikā, about one twenty-third of a second. No being can hold a body for less time than this.
It is not a unit of the clock so much as a floor on existence. A soul entering the very simplest kind of body, a nigoda, may live and die within this span and be reborn immediately.
The figure that gives the tradition its force is the comparison with breathing. One breath lasts a little over seventeen kṣullaka bhava, so in the time it takes you to inhale once, a soul at the bottom of the ladder of life can be born and die seventeen times over.
This is the number Jain teachers reach for when explaining why a human birth is described as extraordinarily rare, and why wasting one is treated as the serious matter it is.
Measurements and counts
| Size | 256 āvalikā |
|---|---|
| In seconds | ≈ 0.044 |
| As a fraction | ≈ 1 / 23 second |
| Per breath | 17 and a fraction |
| Per muhūrta | 65,536 |
| Applies to | the simplest bodies |