In Jainism, nigod (also written nigoda) is the lowest and most primitive form of life (jiv).
Very simple explanation:
What is nigod?
Tiny, microscopic living beings with only one sense – touch.
They live in clusters, many souls together in a common body.
Spiritual level:
- They have very little consciousness.
- They are heavily bound by karma.
- They cannot do any spiritual effort in that state.
- They are at the lowest step of the life ladder.
Number of nigod:
Jain scriptures say innumerable souls remain in nigod state for an extremely long time.
Only very rarely a soul comes out of nigod and slowly starts taking higher births.
Types often mentioned:
- Nitya-nigod – souls that have always been in nigod state.
- Itara-nigod – souls that were higher before, but due to karma fell back into nigod.
Why is this important?
- It shows how many souls exist in the universe.
- It shows how rare and precious a human birth is for doing dharma and going towards moksh.
- It explains why Jains stress ahimsa so much – even water, soil, plants etc. are full of such tiny nigod jivs.
Both Shwetambar and Digambar accept the basic idea of nigod as the lowest one-sensed life form; there may be small differences in detailed descriptions in their texts, but the main concept is the same.
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