Introduction to Jainism and its Culture

SR No.: 001605
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Balbhadra Jain
Publisher: Kundkund Gyanpith Indore
Publication Year: 2002
Total Pages: 334
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Religion, & Culture
File Size: 21 MB

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not being able to bear watching the pain of that being. How can this weakness be called compassion or mercy or ahirisā? Secondly, you are not the master of his destiny so that you can liberate him of his sorrow by killing. Thirdly, if you cannot bear looking at the intolerable pain of a being close your eyes. If you have compassion for it, try to save it. That being does not desire death. You kill that being to remove your own pain caused by your own weakness of not being able to bear the suffering of that being, and rationalize this act by branding it ahiinsa. Can you indulge in such act of non-violent murder or mercy killing or euthanasia of the sufferer is a human being? If you do that you will fail to prove this act of killing as ahimsā by any logic in any court of law. If this act of mercy is used for all beings writhing in pain the resulting carnage can well be imagined. There have been numerous incidents of beings surviving their struggle with death at the last moment and you want to kill such being and blow your trumpet of the assumed glory of ahimsā.
VIOLENCE AND KILLING IN NAME OF RELIGION
In the ancient times performing yajñas (Vedic ritual of invoking and offering sacrifice to deities) was considered to be an essential duty. Vedas, Brāhmaṇa scriptures, and Smrtis have endorsed this duty. All the yajñas are physical acts, performed through material means, and are aimed at fulfillment of mundane desires. Generally yajñas are performed for the goals of gaining wealth, getting a son, cure of disease, destruction of enemies, acquiring kingdom, attaining the status of Cakravarti (the sovereign of six continents), etc. or in order to please various gods, manes, etc. Names of some of these yajñas are - Putra Kāmyesti yajña (performed for getting a son), Rājasūuya yajña (performed for the power of the kingdom), Gomedha yajña (performed with cow sacrifice), Ajāmedha yajña (performed with goat sacrifice), Ašvamedha yajña (performed with horse sacrifice), Nuramedha yajña (performed with human sacrifice), etc. Vedic religion believes that by offering sacrifice of animals in yajñas gods get pleased. They are even pleased with the sacrificed animals. After dying, these animals ride the smoke emitted in the yajña pyre and reach heaven. All animals in this world have been created for yajña only. The hiinsä сommitted by sacrificing animals in a yajña is, in fact, not called himsā. Vedic violence is not violence.
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