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श्रमण-संस्कृति
shades and levels in between. It was argued that one should, therefor, try to understand the truth in its totality which is a result of total understanding of different viewpoints. It this is so, one has no option but to benonviolent. Purification of the soul is the result of balanced life possible for a monk only. The emphasis on non-violence was carried to such an extreme chat even unconscious killing of germs while walking or speaking was considered wrong as it becomes a sin, and as a result, the possibility of Jains adopting an agricultural profession was ruled out, since cultivation and digging of wells would obviously entail violence. Individually a man is born, individually he dies, individually he falls (from his state of Existence), and individually he rises (to another). His passions, consciousness, intellect. Here indeed the bonds of relationship are not able to help or save one!
Two points should be emphasized here. First, the Jain principle of many sided knowledge was similar in substance to the Vedic principle of 'neti', 'neti' (this is not, this is not) or the Upanishadic principles of relativity. This is one reason why Jainism in practice could not always distinguish itself from other practices. In fact, with the passage of time even forms of worship, mantra and tantra found either way into Jainism. Second, in the beginning Jainism was not political, and not anti-political doctrine. It did not contain any political statement of individualism or human equality. Even democratic ideology was wholly absent from it. Since it regarded the world as a bondage, the whole emphasis was on man's efforts to find release from the world to gain salvation by practicing sacrifices and penance. The idea of renunciation received it full expression in Jainism, the world was a cave from which men had to escape in order to find release
According to Jainism, as a slave to pleasures of the senses man accumulates infinite misery, for these pleasures are transient and there in no end to their accumulation. This