Arhat Vachan 2011 01 04

SR No.: 526589
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

Page 80

breach of contract, and perhaps, violations of the law are and should be prohibited. Otherwise anything goes. In short, many familiar moral standards may be completely ignored; and principles central to our moral and religious tradition may be violated without a second thought. The strong may bully the weak, the cunning may exploit the innocence and goodwill of their trusting neighbors, the environment may be fouled and the fabulously wealthy may further enrich them at the expense of the desperately poor. More generally, people may treat others only as means in various ways and everyone is entitled to cause great misery in others for the sake of small personal gain24.
Business is the prime resource of earnings of Jainas. Besides business and trading Jainas have taken to professions also. They are found mainly in legal, engineering, medical and teaching professions. Nowadays many Jainas are holding important positions in various departments of the Governments. In the consumerist society Jainas ofcourse have adopt ed and accepted many new and non-traditional life style but at the same time they think and try to follow their moral ideal and professional code as prescribed. The very first rule of the thirty-five rules of conduct for laymen lays down that a person should follow some kind of business or profession in a just and honest way for the maintenance of his family. The only restriction he has to observe in the choice of his avocation is that it must not be of an ignoble or degrading nature in the sense that it should not involve wholesale destruction of life.
The prohibited businesses are those of butchers, fishermen, brewers, winemerchants, gun-makers and the like26. The Jaina scriptures mention fifteen varieties of business enterprises27, which involve great enjury to living beings, and hence the Jaina laymen are required to avoid them. They are such as those involving great use of fire, cutting of trees or plants, castrating bullocks, clearing of jungles by employment of fire, drying up lakes, rivers, etc28.
References :
4.
Jaini, J.L., Outlines of Jainism, pp.4-5; Glasenapp, Jainism, pp.218-226 Sacred Book of Jainas, Vol-IIIpp5, 17, 158, 159 Bhagavatisūtra, 2.8.682; Sthānāngasūtra, 4.3 Satyam tirthah kşama tirtham d ānam...santosa...brahmacaryam....ca priyavadita!! Sabdakalpdruma-tīrtha, p.626 Sarvapāda.....sarvodayam...tirthamidam...quoted from Mahavira ka Sarvodaya Tirtha, p.12 Latthe, A.B., An Introduction to Jainism, pp.65-69; Jain C.R., Jaina Culture, p.28; . Sanghavi Sukhlal., Jaina Samskriti kā Hrdaya, p.15;. Jain C.R., Jaina Culture, p.5
Arhat Vacana, 23 (1-2), 2011