Tiryag-yoni
Tiryag-yoni · tiryak-yoni, “the womb of the beings that move horizontally”
Grammar: feminine noun; a compound of tiryak (moving horizontally, that is, an animal or bird) and yoni (womb, birth): “birth as a tiryak being”.
Meaning: birth in a non-human womb, as trees, cattle, birds, beasts and the like; the beings so born are the tiryaks.
In the scriptures: Vyāsa tells the munis that in this terrible saṃsāra, full of great delusion and hundreds of sorrows, the jīva is born again and again, thousands of times, in the tiryag-yonis, as trees, cattle, birds and the like, and only with great difficulty gains a human birth (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 229).
In the way of sāṅkhya the seeker must know the many kinds of beings, humans, piśācas, uragas, gandharvas, pitṛs, tiryak beings, garuḍas, maruts and the rest, who enjoy different objects with different faults; and the sorrows and faults in births as tiryaks and in naraka that come from desire for the objects of the senses. For those freed by sāṅkhya there are only higher and higher courses: births as tiryaks and dwelling in naraka do not come to them (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 240).
Vasishṭha Maharshi tells King Karāla Janaka that those who have only pāpa reach naraka and births as tiryaks such as beasts and birds; the mixing of puṇya and pāpa gives the human state, and puṇya alone gives the state of the devas (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 241). The deluded one who does not know the kshara and the akshara returns again and again through birth, death, devaloka, the naraka-loka, the tiryag-yonis and human birth (Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 245).
Related terms: Saṃsāra · Yoni · Naraka · Karma-vipāka · Janma
Sources
- Brahma Purāṇa, Chapters 229, 240–241, 245