________________
JAINISM AND NON-VIOLENCE*
SATYA RANJAN BANERJEE
Preamble
India is the cradle of ahimsa (non-violence). From the hoary antiquity down to the present day, India has always been emphasizing on the importance of ahimsā. There are some passages in Vedic literature, in Classical Sanskrit, in Buddhist and Jain literature which tell us every now and then the eulogy of ahimsa. The impact of the doctrine of ahimsa is so much that even in the literary documents of modern Indian languages, this idea of non-violence is greatly reflected. In the present context, I am only concerned with the contributions of the Jains to the field of non-violence vis-à-vis the other Indian literature like Sanskrit and Buddhist.
Words for Violence
At the very beginning, I believe, it will not be out of place here, if I mention that there are some words which are used in connection with "violence" or "non-violence", and these words are danda, -atipata, han and himsalong with their compound forms.
The root meaning of danda is "to blow with an instrument", "to hurt", "to strike" and the like'. In the Acaranga-sutra (Book II) Mahāvīra was teased withhaya-puvvo tattha dandenam adu vā muṭṭhiņā adu phalenam adu leluṇā kavāleṇam
*
A lecture delivered at the Asiatic Society on the 4th of September 2003 at the Humayun Kabir Hall.
1. For all these ideas, see Colette Chaillat-Words for Violence in the "Seniors" of the Jaina Canon, pp. 207-236, in Jain Studies in Honour of Jozef Deleu 1993 ed. by Rudy Smet and Kenji Watanabe, Hon-no-Tomosha, Tokyo.
