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Jainism, Religious Terrorism & Social Consciousness
Religion is the greatest of all means for the establishing order and bringing peace in the world. It sums up the moral attitude, the peace inducing aspect, found in different religions, irrespective of place or time of their origin. It also signifies an aspect of unity, which is essential virtue of mankind. We know all religious, legal, political and economic theories are solely designed to save humanity as a whole. Inspite of that today many of people are concerned about the future of religion". This happens with having requisite reasoning and logics. With the down of modernism and its critical questioning of everything, traditional religions become less and less appealing. Truly "our age has largely ceased to understand the meaning of religion"12 Accepting of traditional religious beliefs was seen as succumbing to blind faith, which would lead to fundamentalism, and this in turn would generate religious intolerance and even religious terrorism. This is actually happening in many parts of the world today.
To Jainas blind faith is the principal cause of fanaticism and intolerance. It results from passionate attachment and hence uncritical outlook. Indeed, in Jaina literature, blind faith (Darśanamoha/driṣtirāga) has been enumerated as one type of passionate attachment (murccha). Passionate attachment is caused by delusion. It results in perverse attitude and karmic bondage. Blind faith leads one to inculcate the attitude of strong bias toward one's own religion and intolerance of other religions. The difference in the religious ideologies should be critically evaluated through the faculty of reasoning and is considered as samyak darsana (right/rational perception), one of the three jewels of Jainism, which is commonly referred to, as right faith is not blind faith. It is accompanied by rational knowledge, knowledge acquired through critical reasoning. According to Jaina thinkers, reason and faith are contemporary and there is no contention between them. They hold that religious codes and rituals should be critically analyzed.
If one maintains that religion is solely based on faith and there is no place for reason in it, then e will invariably develop an outlook that only his prophet, religion and scripture are true and others' religions, prophets and scriptures are false. He will also believe that his prophet is the only savior of mankind; his mode of worship is the only way of experiencing the bliss and the laws of his scripture are the only right ones. Thus he remains incompetent in making a critical estimate of his religious prescriptions. One, who maintains that reason plays an important role in the religious life, will critically evaluate the pros and cons of religious prescriptions, rituals and dogmas. An 'attached' or biased person believes in the dictum 'mine is true' while the 'detached' or unbiased person believes in the dictum 'truth is mine'.13
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Arhat Vacana, 23 (1-2), 2011
| SR No. | 526589 |
| Book Title | Arhat Vachan 2011 01 04 |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Anupam Jain |
| Publisher | Kundkund Gyanpith Indore |
| Publication Year | 2011 |
| Total Pages | 140 |
| Language | Hindi |
| Classification | Magazine, India_Arhat Vachan, & India |
| File Size | 2 MB |