Ethical Doctrines in Jainism

SR No.: 006955
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Kamalchand Sogani
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur
Publication Year: 2001
Total Pages: 322
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 8 MB

Page 272

250
ETHICAL DOCTRINES IN JAINISM
significance of Pratikramana, and Pratyākhyāna. All these factors are of enormous importance for mystical advancement.
FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS OF BUDDHA: We now proceed to early Buddhism. The attitude of Buddha towards life may be judged by the statement; "One who indulges in theoretical speculation on the soul and the world while he is writhing in pain, behaves like the foolish man with a poisonous arrow plunged into his flank, whiling away time on idle speculation regarding the origin, the maker and the thrower of the arrow, instead of trying to pull it out immediately."1 Hence Dr. RADHAKRISHNAN rightly remarks: "We find in the early teaching of Buddhism three marked characteristics, an ethical earnestness, an absence of any theological tendency and an aversion to metaphysical speculation? His promulgation of the four noble: truths which concerns suffering. (duḥkha) and its cause (duḥkha-samudaya), its removal (duḥkha-nirodha) and the way to remove it (duḥkhanirodha-mārga) sums up his entire ethical outlook." Out of the seven Tattvas in Jainism the five Tattvas, which are designated as Asrava, Bandha, Samvara, Nirjarā and Mokşa may be compared with these four noble truths proclaimed by Buddha. Bandha Tattva corresponds to suffering; Asrava to its origin; Moksa answers to its removal, and Samvara and Nirjară, to the way to remove suffering.
The First noble truth is concerned with the experience of universal suffering. Birth, old age, disease, death, bewailings, association with the unpleasant, any craving that is unsatisfied, separation from the pleasantall are painful and fraught with misery. In short, the five aggregatesRūpa, Vijñāna, Vedanā, Samjñā and Samsakāra-are painful.4 According to Jainism Karmic bondage may be equated with suffering.
Buddha's Second noble truth, the cause of suffering may be explained by taking recourse to his doctrine of dependent origination which signifies that the existence of everything is conditional. The existence of suffering (jarā-maraṇa) is on account of birth (jāti) which is due to the will-to-be born (bhava) which is again due to clinging (upādāna) which again is due to craving (trsņā) which again is due to feeling or sense experience (vedanā), which again is due to sense-object-contact (sparsa), which again is due to the six-organs-of-cognition (şaļāyatana) which is 1 Majjhima-Nikāya-Sutta, 63. (WARREN. p. 120. vide An Introduction to Indian Philosophy.)
2 Indian Philosophy. Vol. I. p. 358.. 3 Ani. III. 61. 6.; D.Ni. XXII. 4. 5. D. Ni. XXII. 4. 5.