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JAINISM AND MODERN AGE
Prabhakar Machwe
In this 2500th year of Mahävira's Parinirväņa, it will be appropriate to discuss the relevence of his philosophy and preachings to modern times and modern man. I think that three contributions of Mahāvira are such which stand out as eternal varities and unquestionable values. Non-violence :
The greatest contribution of Jainism is non-injury to anything living. The scope of term 'life' and 'living' is extended by Jains to all Pudgals, like Leibnitz's, Monads, to the smallest and insignificant particle of this creation. The real Jain raises the question : Pray, what is insignificant in the scheme of things ? What is great or small is merely our mental measurement and prejudice; while the mind itself is flexible and relative and never stagnating process of cognition. What is needed is right cognition and right action shall follow,
Modern ecologists and psycho-biologists would corroborate the fact that nothing living is irrelevent in the scheme of things. It is merely our ignorance which pooh-poohs respect for life. As Gandhiji, wrote to Tilak in a letter : "It is our moral cowardice and impatience that we take recourse to violence”. In reality, violence destroys the very cause which advocates it. Let us look at the various political murders done by mad or high-strung abnormals : the recent murders of Gandhi, Bandarnayake, Kennedy and King may be recounted. Large-scale violence, may it be Hiroshima or Nagasaki, Pearl Harbour or Mi Lei, Vietnam or Bangladesh, or even earlier at
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