Ahimsa and Jainism

Author(s): Vijayvallabhsuri
Publisher: Vallabhsuri Smarak Nidhi

Page 55

[ 48 ] will die. This is deduction. Analysing closely these two processes, we find that in neither is there any addition of knowledge. The results are only inferences. In some cases it is mere tautology. We are not under the present development of our nature able to observe all facts; hence the induction is only a working hypothesis at the best. If we happen to meet a single exception, we have to modify the conclusion. In deduction, if the general law is found inapplicable to a particular case, we are obliged to grant that there is an additional factor in that case which does not come under the general law. So that in both processes the results have to be verified by actual experience. By themselves they are not a permanent test. They are not always a correct measure of truth.
In the view of Jain philosophy, the measure of truth is Samyag-jnana, that is, knowledge purged of all infatuating elements. The constitution of man is such that as soon as he removes moral vices, his intellective processes flow into a pure channel. Knowledge or morality as morality is not the ideal of the Jains, In fact, some kind of action always goes with every form of knowledge. We never meet with knowledge
without action, or action without knowledge. True