[Advaita-l] cloning and inevitable mrutyu

[Nithin Sridhar]

Dear Raghav ji,

The Hrdaya mentioned in the texts is not a reference to physical heart or
the heart beat. So, your reference to heart beating has no bearing on the
Dauhrdi status in my reading. Hrdaya is a reference to seat of
consciousness, the manifestation of Jiva inside the fetus and is not a
reference to physical heart. And this happens mostly towards end of 4th
week.

Regarding your question about whether Abortion is Adharma, I would like to
direct you to my other article in the series-
http://indiafacts.org/abortion-dharmic-perspective-iv-abortion-murder/

It is a 4-part article, pl read all of them.

You may want to also check out this talk I gave on the issue wherein I have
discussed some of the questions you have raised-
https://youtu.be/IzZrjqNphPo

I am not aware of any reference to abortion issue by the revered Acharyas.

Regards,
Nithin

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On Wed, Apr 25, 2018 at 10:09 AM, Raghav Kumar Dwivedula via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Namaste Nitin ji
> You have written a commendable article on Abortion from a Dharmic
> perspective with meticulous references from the traditional texts. Thank
> you for the same. I had been looking for such an article for some time now.
> Your articles are an excellent resource on an important dharmic issue.
>
> While there are many points of importance, one issue is about whether a
> foetus with a beating heart and which can feel pain is to be considered as
> having the rights of an independent jiiva or not. You have suggested based
> on texts, of course,  a 16 month cut-off, after which the foetus is a
> fullfledged individual living being. And even before that, those who abort,
> lose their varNa and have committed what is legally labelled homicide not
> amounting to murder. But the general sense I get is that abortion before 16
> weeks is equivalent an accidental killing. Do it's left to the choice of
> the couple?
>
> This topic is inherently painful to contemplate upon but we have to try and
> be objective. A few points I wished to share -
> 1. The limit of 16 weeks for categorizing foetus as a living individual,
> may be more of an indicative nature and the dauhRdi status where there are
> two hearts beating in the enciente happens as early as 6 weeks into
> pregnancy. And most definitely by the 8th week. Fetal pulse is clearly felt
> from them on. The functioning heart is a sign of consciousness being
> associated with the foetus, surely. As you wrote -
> In the fourth month all the limbs and organs (of the body of the embryo)
> become more potent and the fetus is endowed with consciousness owing to the
> formation of viscus of the heart (Hrdaya). As heart is the seat of
> consciousness, so as the heart becomes potent, it is endowed with
> consciousness and hence it expresses its desire for things of taste, smell
> etc. (through the longings of its mother).
>
> The only factor is that this heart functioning etc starts at week 5 and is
> clearly present by week 12 rather than week 16?
>
> And the foetus feels pain because, the thalamus and cortex *start* getting
> connected from 12 to 20 weeks. So killing a foetus at even 12 weeks amounts
> to killing a living being with a beating heart and which can feel pain.
> Although the complete connections are there only after about 16 to 20
> weeks, there is evidence to indicate touch and pain in a foetus which is
> even 12 weeks old. Please see this link of for a visual representations of
> a foetus at 12 weeks.
> https://in.pinterest.com/pin/181481059958351131/
>
> Or
> https://goo.gl/images/gIUS63
>
>
>
> 2.Two authentic shastra scholars one a senior Swami who had also studied
> some of the smritis and another a grihastha paNDita held that the abortion
> is a highly adharmic action at *all* stages of foetal development. Social
> ostracism was only a shade less than capital punishment . The only
> exceptions were to save the life of the mother etc. There was no question
> of a couple choosing to abort since it was inconvenient or unplanned.
>
> One last question - are there any spoken or written pronouncements of the
> respected Shankaracharya Mahasamnidhanam of Sringeri or of Kanchi on this
> issue of permissibility of abortion before 16 weeks ?
>
> Thank you
> Regards
>
> Raghav
>
>
>
>
> On Tue 24 Apr, 2018, 5:43 PM Nithin Sridhar via Advaita-l, <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>
> > This article sheds light on how and when Jiva enters a fetus-
> > http://indiafacts.org/abortion-dharmic-perspective-iii-jiva-enter-fetus/
> >
> > This may provide some perspective.
> >
> > <
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> >
> > On Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 5:23 PM, kuntimaddi sadananda via Advaita-l <
> > advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
> >
> > > Venkatraghavanji - PraNAms
> > > Just couple of comments.
> > >
> > >    On Tuesday, April 24, 2018, 3:04:08 AM EDT, Venkatraghavan S via
> > > Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
> > >
> > >  "But can we give a precise
> > > reason why an electronic entity cannot be considered a jiva with the
> > usual
> > > faculties of iccha, GYAna, and kriya and having sanchita karma etc."
> > >
> > > Namaste,
> > > An interesting thought experiment.
> > > 1) The birth of such a 'jIva' would break the laws of karma.
> > > How can an android jIva have sanchita karma, ie what would be the
> > > receptacle for sanchita karma for an android jIva? If you say the
> > sUkshma /
> > > kAraNa sharIra, then that is created at the same time as the sthUla
> > > sharIra. -------------Sada: Therefore Suukshma/karana shareera need not
> > be
> > > created. Upanishads use the word - upavishati - it enters. An
> appropriate
> > > jiiva enters into the sthuulashareera if that is conducive to exhaust
> its
> > > vaasanaas.
> > > Question, of course, is what jiiva wants that type of shareera to
> exhaust
> > > its vaasanaas?
> > > To the extent that I am familiar with programming, the emotions of the
> > > robot also are programmed - just as a computer can be programmed to
> play
> > > chess. The process of selection of the emotions are also
> pre-programmed,
> > > given the input information and multitude of choices (paths). Hence,
> just
> > > as the virus and bacteria and lower forms of the jiivas are
> > pre-programmed
> > > to follow particular responses to the external stimulus, here the
> > > programmer(s) take the role of Iswara(s) to set the patterns of the
> > > responses and also selection process to respond to the external
> stimulus.
> > > The robots operate until the program(s) fails. They do not have a will
> to
> > > perform independently of the programmed paths.
> > > Hari Om!Sadananda
> > >
> > >
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> >
> > --
> > Nithin S
> > _______________________________________________
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-- 
Nithin S