Ahimsa and Jainism

Author(s): Vijayvallabhsuri
Publisher: Vallabhsuri Smarak Nidhi

Page 59

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Το a person in whom the first germ of reflection is just born the universe is a vague something, an utter mystery-at the most, a unity without differentiation; analysis leads him to consider its various aspects. He is struck with the change he sees everywhere. The constantlyrunning waters of rivers, decaying plants and vegetables, dying animals and human-beings, strongly impress him that nothing is permanent. His first generalization, therefore, will be that the world is transitory After years of research and reflection, he may learn that the things that pass away still exist in an altered condition somewhere. He may now generalize that nothing is annihilated; that notwithstanding the changes that are visible everywhere, the world, taken as a whole, is permanent. Both generalizations are true from different points of view; each by itself is an abstraction. When one learns to synthesize, he puts together the various aspects he has found of the world, and realises that the integrality of truth consists in the indissoluble combination of all the possible aspects. The inherence of contrary aspects in a single idea or object seems impossible to the unsynthetic mind. Sankara the well-known Vedanta scholar, has fallen into a great error when he states that the Jain doctrine should not be
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