$JES 401 Jain Philosophy and Practice 2 Level 4 Book

Author(s): JAINA Education Committee
Publisher: JAINA Education Committee

Page 59

capacity for self-restraint and will-power. Putting limitations, even within the already accepted limits, on the use of objects of senses for the day, or according to one's requirements, with the purpose of reducing the sense of attachment to them, is the Bhoga Upbhoga Parimäna Vrata.
It is recommended that where ever possible a layman should use inanimate things. If needed he may use animate things; but he must limit the use of them. He should always give up flesh foods. Concerning the trades in which the layman should engage in order to obtain the things he uses; they should be faultless, and sinless. If he is unable to avoid sinless business completely, then he should at least give up such trades that involve cruelty to animals.
Renunciation of Bhogas and Upabhogas is of two kinds:
⚫ Yama is undertaken for life.
Niyama has a time limit
Limitation of time could be for an hour, a day, a night, a fortnight, a month, a season or a year and renunciation could be from food, conveyances, beds, bathing, clothes, ornaments, cohabitation or music. Honey, flesh, milk, dairy products, liquor, and like should not be consumed to avoid injury to other form of living beings.
It is not enough if one gives up what is undesirable; he should also limit the use what is desirable. Considering ones strength, the wise should renounce even those objects of senses, which are desirable He should limit their usage by day or night, and further limit to the already set limits should be considered every day. He who being thus contented with limited objects of senses, renounces a majority of them, observes Ahimsa because of his abstaining from a considerable part of Himsä.
Five Transgressions (Atichär) of this Vow:
⚫ Eating live objects such as green vegetables
Taking anything connected with things possessing life such as using a green leaf as a plate
Taking a mixture of living and non-living things such as hot water with fresh water
Taking provocative food
⚫ Taking badly cooked food
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The second part of this Vrata deals with profession. One should not follow or urge others to follow professions wherein violence on a large scale is possibly involved. One should not use things produced through them if one wants to remain from large-scale violence.
If we want to wear clothes manufactured in mills, want to enjoy the things of leather which is obtained after killing animals, to use clothes and things made of silk which is produced after having killed the foursensed silkworms, to put on ornaments of pearls obtained after having killed the five-sensed fish and similarly to use and enjoy other things whose production involves large scale violence or killing, then we are part of this violence.
One should scrupulously avoid the use of those things whose production involves large-scale violence. It is not possible to observe the vows of non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, continence and nonpossession without properly limiting the quantity of things one uses. Because man (or society) who indulges in the excessive use and enjoyment of things has to take recourse to the large-scale violence in the mass production of those things for satisfying his inordinate and limitless desire for the use and enjoyment of those things. To satisfy this ever-growing desire, one has to struggle hard to acquire ever more possessions. All sins and vices arise from this dreadful desire. It is the function of strong will power and mental strength to properly curb the desire for worldly enjoyment. Such a strong willed or strongminded man can be saved from many sins and vices and can achieve prosperity and spiritual welfare very easily.
The vow of limiting the quantity of things one uses consists in renouncing the professions in which large scale violence is involved, scrupulously avoiding food, drink, clothes, ornaments, utensils, etc., whose
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