Religion and Philosophy of the Jainas

SR No.: 001190
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Jain International Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1993
Total Pages: 266
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, Ethics, & Principle
File Size: 13 MB

Page 225

192 RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE JAINAS
Disregarding the guilty living beings we must now consider which of the innocent ones he can refrain from killing. Men when they kill innocent living beings intentionally do so either.
1. Without a proper necessary cause, or 2. For a proper necessary purpose.
The layman cannot undertake to refrain from the intentional killing of innocent beings when there is a proper necessary cause for doing it. And so again the protection to life is reduced to 1. Thererfore the protection which a layman can undertake to afford to life is, in comparison with that afforded by the monk, as 1 is to 16.
The layman, then, can undertake to refrain from killing innocent moving living beings intentionally when he has no proper necessary cause. So, the first vow of the layman is : “I shall not kill a moving living being with determined intention when it is innocent, without a proper necessary cause or purpose.” Incidental
Virtues and vices are states of the individual and can never be transmitted or transferred from one person to another. Each person develops his own state of virtue, just as he does his own knowledge. You cannot impart virtue to another person, you cannot inherit virtue (in the sense of receiving it). You cannot inherit knowledge or impart knowledge. You can supply a person with the means (such as books or lectures) whereby he can develop his own knowledge.
Partial Transgressions of the first vow
Now we come to the things which are partial transgressions of this first vow.
A vow (vrata) is observed in two ways which, in the absence of appropriate English names, may be called the subjective way and the objective way, or the external and the intemal way. In the aticāras (transgressions) it is the subjective or intemal way that is broken, while in the external way the vow is not broken, and therefore it is called a partial transgression of the vow.
We are now considering prersons in the 5th or desavirati stage