Ahimsa Crisis You Decide

Author(s): Sulekh C Jain
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

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Preface
We are living an age when humanity is severely suffering with strong-headed religious fundamentalism, cultural, intellectual and political intolerance, various forms of terrorism, economically dominant imperialism, rampant environmental degradation and deep civilizational crises. The constantly growing stock of nuclear armaments is posing serious threat to our very existence. In such an unnerving scenario, Ahimsa or Non-violence appears to be the only solace as also the most effective last resort for saving the earth and its inhabitants.
More than ever before, we need to seriously understand and analyse various aspects of Ahimsa and explain how it can be practiced in our day to day life. It should not remain merely a theoretical principle or religious dictum; rather it must become a 'way of life'. The present book by Shri Sulekh C. Jain makes a commendable effort in this direction and deals with various dimensions of issues involved in comprehending and actually practicing Ahimsa.
Ahimsa is the central concept of Jain philosophical and religious tradition. Mahavira, the last Tirthankara (Propounder) of Jainism, identified it with "Dharma" (the duty) itself and declared "Ahimsa Parmo Dharma" which means "Ahimsa is the highest or ultimate duty". The concept of Ahimsa in Jain tradition is deeply rooted in its metaphysics, which maintains equality of all souls and categorizes all living beings into onesensed to five-sensed beings. It firmly believes that like human beings, the most evolved among five sensed beings (higher animals, beasts and birds), all other living beings including four sensed beings such as bees, three sensed beings such as ants, two sensed being such as worms, and even one-sensed beings such as trees (having sense of touch only), qualitatively have the same soul. The only difference being that of the level of development of consciousness.
Accordingly, every soul is potentially capable of attaining Moksha (the final liberation) or the highest level of
An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide
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