Jainism and Ecology Views of Nature Nonviolence and Vegeteranism

Author(s): Michael Tobias
Publisher: Michael Tobias
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/250396/1

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TOBIAS: JAINISM AND ECOLOGY 139 Jainism and Ecology: Views of Nature, Nonviolence, and Vegetarianism Michael Tobias He who looketh on creatures, big and small, of the earth, as his own self, comprehendeth this immense universe.' encountered my first hint of Jainism in a white marble, spot1 lessly clean temple many years ago while traveling through western India. It was late in the day. Birds were flocking overhead, where a large sculptured spire rose from the center of the temple toward a magenta twilight. As I approached the entrance, a whiterobed gentleman quietly surveyed my person, then requested that I be so kind as to leave my watch outside the temple. He explained that leather the watchband was not permitted inside the sacred space of Jainism. He used the "ism" rather than referring to the temple itself, and this complicated contraction of the language set me to wondering. Not long after that, I realized I was a Jain at heart. There are some seven to ten million Jains today, mostly in India, perhaps thirty thousand in the United States. And they are to be found in many other countries, from Ethiopia to Canada. Until the last century their religion was frequently confused by Western scholars with both Hinduism and Buddhism. But, in fact, it is arguably the oldest living faith in the world, distinct from any other, dating back tens-of-thousands of years. There are incontrovertible references to Jainism as early as the ninth century B.C., three hundred years prior to the emergence of Buddhism. Unlike the later Brahmanic spiritualist traditions, with their bouquets and contagia of deities, the Jains worship no god. Worship, according to them, is a form of interference, and interference is counter to nature. They revere nature. That is their essential characteristic. The semantics are obtuse, and, as we shall see, contradictory for the Jains themselves. What is the difference between "revere" and "worship" one asks? Perhaps the important distinction rests upon the idea of God, which the Jains dismiss as anthropomorphic, whereas nature-the word, the concept, the surreality--necessarily transcends any focal point of conceptualization. At the same time, Jains find themselves neither wishing to interfere with nor willing to accept certain inequities inherent to the natural world. How they go about resolving such dichotomy is the basis of the Jain ideal. A community devoted to that ideal, the Jains have worked out their problems in ways that have merged ecology and spirituality: sacrificing self-interest for the greater good, while never losing sight of individual self-worth, which they emphatically uphold. Conscious love the striving toward an harmonious coexistence with all beings-is the purposeful, soul-supportive, evolutionary instinct of nature. That, say the Jains, is nature. And no semantic penchant, no logical argument, no linguistic or conceptual conquest can do better than that, however it is phrased. Humanity must recognize its place in the natural process. It is not something to be worshiped, not some Other; it is ourselves, in need of nurturance and recognition. Short of that, we are not ourselves. We perish as individuals. And as individuals perish, the entire biological community fragments, endures pain. Pain, say the Jains, is unnecessary. This is a revolutionary notion. It goes on to insist that human beings are like an island of conscience in a sea of turmoil. We have the capability, the responsibility to protect one another. For the Jains, "one another" means every living organism in the galaxy. Yet to become a Jain requires far more than mere "reverence" for nature, which is the easy presumption when describing this commonsense orthodoxy. The Jains recognize in their way that reverence is easy, because it is so identifiable with heaven. Anybody can go to heaven. But it takes courage to remain here on earth; to be affirmative and optimistic takes strength: neither to ignore nor forget, but to embrace and conquer. Jainism derives from the word jina, which means peaceful conqueror of the self-conqueror of one's inner distractions and temptations. To become a Jain, then, is to embrace this earth as heaven, not with any thought of escaping it or eschewing one's responsibility toward it, but in full affirmation of it-every organism, every connection, the whole evolving biosphere. Every religion assists adepts in an addiction to heaven; every psychotherapy calculates its gain by the notches of paradise, the mental tranquillity, the ideological utopia it can invent. Paradise is easy. Politicians are forever promising it. Great artists in their 138

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140 WORLDVIEWS AND ECOLOGY TOBIAS: JAINISM AND ECOLOGY 141 passion are invoking it. The Garden of Eden, in other words, is an idea everywhere about us, in some form or another-from the Bible to Brueghel, from Club Med to a perfect week in a far wilderness. Yet the actions that should be concomitant with paradise are rare. Indeed, what should they be? For the Jains, this earth, with its multitudes of life forms and atoms, is the only true sphere of meaning, the place of dreams, of action, of moral and aesthetic culmination. They call it Jivan-mukhta, the divine on ut all of these phrases connote an outer admonition, vague and meandering, that fails to reach the inner soul of Jainism. In that inner soul the dimension of thought and behavior can be simply identified by a word, namely, ahimsa, which is Hindi for nonviolence, or noninterference. Serving the Jain commonality of purpose, twenty-four exemplary adherents of ahimsa are acknowledged to have achieved the bliss of perfect understanding and action. The Jains call them Jinas, or Tirthankaras. They are not gods, but humans; they did not go to heaven, per se, but to immortal Earth, their souls richly enshrined somewhere in the planet's eternal biochemistry. To call it the summit of a sacred mountain (ie, Mount Su-Meru or Mount Kailasha in Tibet), or nirvana, is to cultivate the hieratic inexactitude of yearning beyond all encapsulation, of language that cannot hope to fix between its letters the appropriate physical or emotional coordinates. For the Jains, topography becomes relevant when it has entered the soul. The most recent of these Jinas, Mahavira, lived in Bihar (eastern India) from 599 to 527 B.C. He was an older contemporary of Gautama Buddha. Both men shared certain qualities--great renunciations, extreme psychological embattlement, unfriendly opponents, legendary hardships. In the case of Mahavira, his abdication of the normal material existence occurred only after his parents had died. The story goes that he did not want to break their hearts. After they had passed away, Mahavira took off his clothes and spent some forty years wandering across India, preaching the message of peace. He was a total vegetarian and Jainism itself is adamantly so. Mahavira's nudity (acelakka) is well worth commenting upon, for it suggests a state of purity and inner unity that is-it must be acknowledged-rather rare in these times. There are, however, approximately fifty-six existing naked Jain monks (Digambara sect Jains) in India who spend but a few days at any one time in any particular village. They are dependent upon those who will feed them pure vegetarian food-food that is said to possess but one sense organ, the sense of touch: specific fruits, vegetables, grains, and nuts. They eat one meal a day, when they are not fasting, food eaten out of the palms of their hands which they consume knowing that even the one-sensed organisms, like soy, want to live, want not to be eaten. All Jains, not just the fewer number of whiterobed (Shwetambara) and naked (Digambara) monks, have red their consumption; however, they do eat one-sensed beings so as not to starve. A human being, like most animals, has five senses. And because Jains are devoted to minimizing violence on this earth, they recognize that it is better to spare the five-sensed being, even if it means consuming the one-sensed. Such gradations of behavior are consistent with the Jain philosophy of nonabsolutism (anekantavada), the many-sidedness of thinking. What is not suited to this cognitive tolerance, however, is the killing or harm of any organism with more than one sense, except in instances of total self-defense, where once again the minimizing of violence as a general principle is employed. What this means, practically speaking, is that the Jains have renounced all professions involving harm to animals. Not surprisingly, their ecological avocations have proved to be financially successful and the Jain communities throughout India find themselves economically advantaged. They have used their philanthropically to perpetuate the practice of ahimsa. They have established animal welfare centers known as panjorapors, compassionate oases in a harsh country where cattle are beloved to death, in essence-left to wander, in other words, until they typically starve to death in old age. Here is an instance of where the Jains will interfere with nature, rescuing the old or infirm animals and caring for them lovingly until they die natural deaths inside the enters. I have seen Jains go to animal markets and purchase sheep and goats destined for the slaughterhouses, rescuing them at any price. The Jains always granted equal status to women. There was never a caste system among the Jains. How could there be given the Jain conviction that all people can become enlightened? Abortion and contraception are allowed, though abortion itself is not religiously sanctioned. Here again, where the mother's own physical or mental well-being is jeopardized, her adulthood is granted priority status. Pragmatic minimizing of violence is once again at work. Agricultural professions, timber, even mineral exploitation, most pharmaceutical or any earth-moving enterprises-these are all outside the Jain level of acceptance. Hotels which serve non

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WORLDVIEWS AND ECOLOGY vegetarian food to their guests are also against every Jain canon. Jain doctors cannot prescribe any drugs that are derived from animal by-products or were ever tested on animals. Jain lawyers are vehemently opposed to any form of physical punishment. Jains stay out of the military, unless called upon to defend the nation during an active conflict. Jains even forego silk saris, so fundamental to pan-Indian fashion, knowing as they do that approximately ten thousand silk worms are boiled alive to make a single garment. As for Jain monks, they are celibate, but not for the reasons asexuality has been ordained in other religious quarters. For the Jain mendicants, ejaculation is perceived in stark terms: it kills, on average, seventy-five million spermatazoa, while wreaking havoc with the bacterial balance of a woman's genitalia. However, lay Jains propagate themselves despite these uncomfortable recognitions, always oriented in their hearts toward that day when they too can renounce sex, renounce automobiles (cars kill bugs), and simply walk naked, barefoot, throughout their homeland, practicing the primary rules of ahimsa.3 142 Rules are basic to Jain ecology. They translate into daily practices that are meant to inhibit the unrestrained inflow of daily sensation, passion, karma. Karma covers the soul, say the Jains, the way a cataract clouds and inhibits the vision. The goal of the Jain is to restrict and eventually banish the accumulation of karma-material goods, passions, ill-will toward others, complexity, haste, narcissism, ego in all its phases-so that the soul can be eventually free of inconsequential attachments and harmful deeds. They call this condition kshayika-samyak-darshana, translated as true insight through the destruction of karma. When that day comes, a Jain will have achieved his moksha, or liberation. Jains have their own form of Ten Commandments (the five anuvratas, or vows). These major convictions consist of ahimsa (nonviolence with literally hundreds of psychoanalyzed forms of behavior to avoid, or to embrace), satya (truth), asteya (not stealing), brahmacarya (sexual abstinence), and aparigraha (nonpossession). In addition, there are eleven pratimas-stages of spiritual progress and eight mulagunas, the basic restraints. In negotiating their way through this labyrinth of injunctions, the lay Jains strive toward monkhood, some more fervently than others. In reality, few achieve that state of complete itinerant renunciation, best articulated, perhaps, by a naked Digambara who once sat with me at a temple above the city of Indore and spoke the following words: TOBIAS: JAINISM AND ECOLOGY 143 "Twenty-two years ago I took the vow of nudity. Extraordinary as it may appear to you, nudity has become natural to us.... We do not possess anything whatsoever and we do not have to tell people to likewise give up their worldly possessions. Our example itself conveys the fact that here is a man who can be happy without having or wanting anything. It is important to see that what hurts himself also must hurt others and what gives happiness to others alone can give happiness to himself. It is ahimsa that makes for friendship between father and son, and love between husband and wife. With these words I bless you. May the whole world remain in peace."4 There is in Jainism a practice of "temporary asceticism," much like a fasting or meditation retreat, which makes a monk out of a businessman for a day, or a weekend, or as long as he or she wishes to emulate the foregoing convictions. I have spent considerable time in India in this mode of impermanent austerity, or tapas. But it is a mistake to assume that Asia is where ascetics can best manage. India is not the essential ingredient of such behavior. Jain awareness is what matters. And it is as appropriate in the U.N. General Assembly or the World Court at the Hague as it is on Wall Street or in Hollywood or Washington. The space of this meditation never ceases, never need change: a cafe in downtown Tokyo; the sculptured caverns of ancient Ellora; a marble enclave atop a high Maharastran tropic; a drowsy train headed to nowhere, across Siberia-whatever the personal circumstances of time or place, the same cacophany of senses is rushing in to proclaim the earth itself as the basis for humble and reverential thought and deed. Jainism can work in the industrial sections of Manchester, England or in a place like Ahmedabad, along a sleepy Gujarati river, where Gandhi spent many years spinning his own fabric, meditating, building a case against the British occupation of India, and practicing the Jainism which his earliest mentor, a Jain teacher, and his closest friend-a Jain ascetic-had inculcated in the Mahatma. "If ahimsa be not the law of our being, then my whole argument falls to pieces," wrote Gandhi. Jainism can work, and must work, anywhere, everywhere. It is ecological shepherding taken to its logical conclusion. Ironically, the Jains within India have become remarkably adept capitalists. Though they collectively account for but one percent of India's nearly one billion residents, they pay a proportionate lion's share of the country's taxes, as well as providing generous philanthropic donations. Their ecological professions have proven to be among

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144 WORLDVIEWS AND ECOLOGY TOBIAS: JAINISM AND ECOLOGY 145 the most lucrative enterprises: businesses like law, computer software, publishing, education, diamond cutting, the judiciary, administration. None of these activities would be considered pure by the Jain clerics. Diamond cutting, for example, disturbs the body of the earth, not so much on the finger of one's bride, but in the mines where the uncut stones are rudely hewn. Publishing is even more injurious, for the obvious reasons. A single edition of a Sunday newspaper in Bombay, regardless of the amount of recycled pulp, has taken its devastating toll on the forests and the surrounding ecosystem. Nevertheless, by comparison with most of their contemporaries, the Jains have gone a remarkable distance in minimizing harmful impact on the earth's ecosystems. And what I was to discover in my various encounters with new Jain friends-jurists, businessmen, professors, monks, children, industrialists, doctors, engineers, nuns and monks, photographers, etc.-is the stunning extent to which they are constantly talking about and attuned to a meditation on nature, simplification, the largesse which is, in their firm estimation, appropriate to human conscience. According to the Jain approach, the grandiose has fused with the humble; an entire living planet has been incorporated into the germ of a human ideal: the protection of all life forms. Concerned with understanding the roots of human aggression and the possibilities for reversing those tendencies inside a person, the Jains have qualified their ecological thinking by reference to the unconscious and to rudimentary psychology; this motif is everywhere to be found in their approximately forty-six remaining ancient texts, or Agama, all written in an ancient Magadhan language known as Ardhamagadhi. Those philosophic and poetic writings include twelve Anga and thirty-four Angabahya. By psychoanalyzing violence, breaking down daily himsa, or harm, into its minute parts, the Jains have discovered the wellspring of compassion. At every juncture of human behavior they have divined right and wrong, signaling hope, allowing for gentleness, finding a path toward love that is viable, humble, and appropriate to everyone. The dharma-tirtha, or holy path, is the result of daily salutations (namaskara-mantra), compassion, empathy and charity (jiva-daya), care in walking (irya-samiti), forgiveness (kshama), universal friendliness (maitri), affirmation (astikya), the sharing with guests (atithi-samvibhaga), critical self-examination (alocana), constant meditation (dhyana), a vast realm of behavioral restraints (gunavratas), and aversion leading to renunciation (vairagya). These many assertions of a daily quest, taken together, are the basis for liberation in this life, the realization that all souls are interdependent (parasparopagraho jivanam). Mahavira had stated, "All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain, nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away. This is the pure unchangeable external law." The ideal goes far beyond biology. The fact of fickle evolution is no excuse for bad behavior, say the Jains. Evolution does not condemn us to anything. Our choices condemn us. We are not clouds in trousers, drifting out of control, but forces for empathy, capable of adroit and systematic deliberation. As Thoreau cautioned, we must live our lives deliberately, such that the very ecological ground rules that have surfaced in this century are now seen to have had their origins many millennia ago in a cultural and spiritual phenomenon known as Jainism. For the Jains, ecology and meditation the inner contemplative faculties, and the outer activism of will and body--are one and the same: an Earth in the Self that becomes, again, the Earth. The concept is a concept, but it is also a revolutionary (though self-evident) form of action-a realm given to the identifying and solving of misgivings, imbalance, trauma, and sadness: ecological activism that is introspective, contemplation that is extroverted. Jain ecology is thus a process of focusing on nature through the practices of restraint, meditation, and action. This inner attentiveness then blossoms into an embrace of the life principle which is the earth and all of its interrelational beings. That focus, known as samayika, relates earth processes to an understanding of the self. The complexity of this fusion, ecologically speaking, can be understood in any number of important ways. For example, when one species of tree goes extinct in the tropics, dozens, possibly even hundreds of animal species are likely to go extinct with it. We may chop down a tree and say, "In all humility, I have chopped down only one tree to build a simple cabin for myself." Or, we may acknowledge that to chop down that tree is to cause unimaginable harm, to fuel what is understood to be the tragedy of the commons syndrome. This is the contradiction inherent to the human psyche. The adversaries are clearly drawn in Jainism. And the soul, the jiva, is its battleground. According to the Jains, every soul in every organism, is an individual, with a dream, a want, a fervent hope. All organisms feel pain. No one wants to suffer, neither the bacteria in one's armpit, the 36,000 cubic feet of life in a redwood tree, the tulip, nor the child. We are all individuals, to repeat: beings with souls, beings with needs. And we must be allowed to evolve according to our own inner energies. Thus, the

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146 WORLDVIEWS AND ECOLOGY TOBIAS: JAINISM AND ECOLOGY 147 Once that ecological meditation, that Jain summoning of feeling, has begun, there is no turning back. "Khamemi sabbajive sabbe jiva khamantu me metti me sabbabhuyesu veram majjha na kenavi" These words of a Digambara monk were spoken to me in the temple village of Taranga, meaning, "I forgive all beings, may all beings forgive me. I have friendship toward all, malice toward none." Notes Jains have sought to protect the wildness in everyone; to reinstate the dignity and original purpose of the wilderness; to reconnect with the nature in everything-but to do so with absolute nonviolence. This imposes a colossal gymnasatic on all thought and behavior. Jainism has undertaken to walk that tightrope. What is remarkable is its delicate balance. To argue, as many have done, that animals and insects kill one another, an implicit challenge to the high hopes of Jainism, is to ignore the great Jain calling which recognizes violence in nature but vehemently insists that human beings, and other animals as well, have the ability to reverse what is pernicious in the world, to celebrate and coddle, to love and nurture. It does not matter whether one accepts the premise that the animal world is a Hobbesian maelstrom of aggressive genes and self-defense, of hedonistic impulses and only rare instances of kin altruism. For the Jains, inherited or not, it is our responsibility as feeling, thinking beings to make loving the preferred medium of exchange on earth. Because the Jains have so acutely examined the violence everywhere endemic to nature, they have systematically retreated into communities that are typically densely populated. Jain ascetics do not live in caves far removed from others. They depend upon city and village lay Jains for their food and sustenance. It means that there is no "wilderness tradition" among the Jains, no agricultural or pastoral reveries, no sense of solitary poets and monastic mists. Instead, the Jains are gregarious, living off the land, but doing so according to a pattern of minimal consumption, minimalist impact, and discrete movement and presence. In no other religion or way of life has the ideal been so extreme. But what is striking and uncanny is that ideal's accessibility to individuals. In one of many such stories, it is said that Mahavira, in a former life, was a lion who--upon speaking with a Jain monk-resolved to die of hunger rather than harm any other living being. And upon his death, was immediately reborn the 24th Tirthankara. We may well pass on without having learned many answers, but the same questions of a life-force with which Jainism is preeminently concerned will always prevail. Such questions concern the universal decency and the possibilities for joy and empathy which are our responsibility to engender as compassionate, rational individuals confronted by a sea of tumultuous evolution. The soul of Jainism is thus about stewardship, requiring human diligence, human conscience, and human love. Jain ecology is nothing more than universal love (mettim bhavehi). This essay is an adaptation of the author's piece, "The Soul of Jainism," in Michael Tobias, Environmental Meditation (Santa Cruz, Calif.: Crossing Press, 1993). 1. Excerpt from the teachings of the Jinas, in Jyoti Prasad Jain, Religion and Culture of the Jains (New Delhi: Bharatiya Jnanpith, 1983), 187. 2. And this minimizing of violence includes one's speech. See, for example, the first Anga, the Acaranya Sutra (book 2, lecture 4, lesson 2) in Jaina Sutras, Part 1, trans. Hermann Jacobi (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1980). 152-56: Mahavira has written that monks or nuns must use a sinless language when describing nature. Trees should be described as "magnificent." "noble." When speaking of wild fruits, the monk or nun should never say, "They are ripe, they should be cooked or eaten, they are just in season, or soft, or they have just split," in as much as these are invocations to destroy such fruit. Similarly, with regard to vegetables, Mahavira writes, "A monk or a nun, seeing many vegetables, should not speak about them in this way: "They are ripe, they are dark coloured, shining, fit to be fried or roasted or eaten." Instead, the monk or nun should say, "They are grown up, they are fully grown, they are strong, they are excellent, they are run to seed, they have spread their seed, they are full of sap." In other words, they should be left alone, to be enjoyed as miracles in and of themselves, free to be souls, free to evolve If the monk wishes to "eat or suck one half of a mango or a mango's peel or rind or sap or smaller particles" the monk may only do so if the fruit is free from eggs, is injured, and has been nibbled at already by other animals. The same holds for sugar cane, and nearly every wild fruit or vegetable that is allowed. The very willingness to eat, under circumscribed conditions, hinges strictly upon the monk's recognition that not to eat some thing is suicide, which is also the infliction of pain. Nevertheless, that something must be minimal (ibid., lecture 7. lesson 2, pp. 173-77). "The extent to which such ethical delineation proceeds is even to be noted in the twentyone rules which occasion the wandering monk's defecation. For example, in keeping with current park and wilderness regulations, "a monk or a nun should not ease nature at sacred places near rivers, marshes or ponds, or in a conduit." In relieving themselves, the monk or nun-and by inference, all human beings-must avoid harming shrubs, vegetables, or roots, and any places which contain leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds, or sprouts (ibid., lecture 2, pp. 120-35). In the Kalpasutra (117) it is stated that Mahavira "was selfrestrained in his way.faring, his speech and his desires, as well as in holding and rightly

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148 WORLDVIEWS AND ECOLOGY TOBIAS: JAINISM AND ECOLOGY 149 7. Acaranga Sutra (book 2, lecture 4, lesson 1) in Jaina Sutras, 36. 8. See Haripada Chakraborti, Asceticism in Ancient India (Calcutta: Punthi Pustak, 1973), 423, 425. 9. Translated by Dr. Padmanabh S. Jaini, University of California, Berkeley, in an unpublished essay, "Ahimsa: A Jaina Way of Personal Discipline," 21. placing the begging-bowl He was circumspect in discarding excretia, urine, saliva, phlegm, or body dirt. He was self-controlled in mind, speech, and body. He had restrained his heart, his tongue, his body, his senses, and his carnal desires. He was free of anger, pride, deceit, and greed. His spirit was calm, composed, and tranquil." In essence, "He was liberated from the knots of karma. He had become ego-free and free from all sense of possessiveness ... He was like a pure bronze vessel emptied of all water." 3. The image conjured by Mahavira is of the most extraordinarily delicate avoidance. "A monk or a nun wandering from village to village should look forward for four cubits, and seeing animals they should move on by walking on his toes or heels or the sides of his feet. If there be some bypath, they should choose it, and not go straight on; then they may circumspectly wander from village to village. A monk or a nun wandering from village to village, on whose way there are living beings, seeds, grass, water, or mud, should not go straight if there be an unobstructed byway; then they may circumspectly wander from village to village" (ibid., lecture 3, lesson 1, p. 137). 4. Translated at the Digambara Temple above Indore in January 1986 by P. S. Jaini, consultant to my PBS film Ahimsa: Non-Violence (Los Angeles, Direct Cinema Ltd.). 5. The basic doctrine of Jainism hinges upon this prudent, empathetic avoidance of pain, in oneself, and in the rest of the cosmos. Mahavira wrote that "You are that which you intend to hit, injure, insult, torment, persecute, torture, enslave or kill." This injunction even applies to nonanimate beings. In the Uttaradhyayana it is written, "One should not permit (or consent to) the killing of living beings; then he will perhaps be delivered from all misery; thus have spoken the preceptors who have proclaimed the Law of ascetics. ... In thoughts, words, and acts he should do nothing injurious to beings who people the world, whether they move or not" (lecture 9). Later, in the same Anga, it is written, "Having thus learned the nature of] living beings and lifeless things which is in accordance with the principles of reasoning, and believing in it, a sage should delight in self-control" (lecture 36). Jains are the first to criticize themselves for their own shortcomings. While their faith is adamant about vegetarianism, Jains are not, as a rule, so-called vegans, vegetarians who also abstain from dairy products. Jains do drink milk. Moreover, some wear leather, drink alcohol, eat garlic. Many nonmonks drive cars, fly in airplanes (both activities traditionally forbidden of monks), acquire possessions, build houses, run businesses, and so forth. 6. Among the younger generation of Jains, there is a radical sense that the ancient precepts of their faith have more relevance than ever before. In the Young Jains International Newsletter, published out of Middlesex, England, emphasis is increasingly upon such exemplary organizations as Greenpeace, the Red Cross, and Amnesty International, and upon methods of focusing the Jain nonviolent philosophy in the contemporary arena. Writing in the October-December issue of 1992 on the subject of "Jainism in Business and Professional Life," Shashikant Mehta says, "To raise your standard of living you must raise your standard of giving.... If you serve others genuinely, the prosperity is bound to come. That is a law of nature." Similarly, Atul Shah has devised a compelling series of "experiments" with Jainism for young people everyday. Instead of a private car, use public transportation. Read, rather than watch television. Wash clothes by hand. Minimize the use of all material possessions for one week. Peace marches, nonviolent study groups, a Jain scientist in Antarctica designing a vegetarian approach to life at a glacial basecamp, the systematic rejection of those aspects of the fashion industry that incorporate animal byproducts--from down to cashmere, leather, and fur--and an increasingly outspoken community are all characteristics of a vital evolution in Jainism. Acknowledging this growth, and its underlying tenets, L. M. Singhvi, the author of the Jain Declaration on Nature (1990), summarizes by stating that "It is this conception of life and its eternal coherence, in which human beings have an inescapable ethical responsibility, that made the Jain tradition a cradle for the creed of environmental protection and harmony."