International Journal Of Jaina Studies Vol 01 To 03 2005 To 2007

SR No.: 022773
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Peter Flugel
Publisher: Hindi Granth Karyalay
Publication Year: 2008
Total Pages: 202
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 51

I should perhaps make it clear at this point that I am not denying that ascetic values have been crucial to Jaina history, but, beyond the merely emblematic, I am questioning the importance for most lay practice of the near-total or blanket ahimsa required of ascetics. Of course, there are lay people (particularly women) who, from time to time, undertake strict ascetic vows, notably fasting, but in between, those same people, and many others, pursue their significant religious lives through what, in monastic terms, are the harming activities of pājā (worship). Additionally, they go about their daily lives in factories and hospitals, drive cars, fly planes, and so on. To talk about a reluctant compromise, a 'second-best future' (Norman 1991: 39), or a failure to live up to the ideal, does not, I think, reflect the reality of the situation; rather I suggest that lay Jains, in practice, if not in theory, actually have a different set of ethical values, which for most of Jaina history has not been regarded as in any way inferior to that of ascetics. Another way of putting this is to say that Jaina ethics, rather than being universal, is in fact particularistic, in the sense that not just different rules, or different interpretations of the same rules, but effectively quite different ethical standards apply to ascetics on the one hand, and laity on the other; and they do so precisely because ascetics and laity belong to different groups or categories.
Perhaps the clearest way of illustrating this point is to consider Jaina ethics in their Indian cultural context. In Hinduism, just as impurity is relative to caste, so to some extent is morality, at least in the eyes of the higher castes. The anthropologist, David Pocock (1973: 58), writes the following about the attitude of higher castes to lower ones: 'We have to rid ourselves of the notion that "low" in the caste hierarchy implies moral condemnation of such a kind that members of low castes ought to abandon their evil ways and conform to a universal set of values. Members of such castes are indeed said to be ... lightweight or shoddy, ... low and ... black - but in spite of being regarded as morally inferior, they are not morally condemned. One can often hear the phrase ... "for those people it is not a sin", used in a discussion of meat-eating, widow-remarriage, liquor drinking and any custom which the speaker regards as low.'
This reflects a classical concept, that of sva-dharma - 'inherent-duty' - i.e. duty according to class and caste. It is a duty you are born with - adharma, 'sin' in this context, is the failure to conform to your sva-dharma, and so to set yourself against natural law,
work of the doyen of modern Jaina studies, Professor Padmanabh Jaini, has also been influential in this respect. There, ascetic values in general, and ahimsa in particular are presented as a prototype or ideal to which the laity aspire, while, in practice, indeed, out of practical necessity, mostly having to settle for an inferior compromise.
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