Ahimsa the Science of Peace

Author(s): Surendra Bothra
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

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Mahavir expressed the idea in simple words - ‘There never was, neither is, nor will be a moment when this universe did not exist, is not existing, and will not exist. But at the same time, its apparent form continues to change with the passage of time.' Such knowledge should never be neglected or discarded, and if frozen within the ice of misdirected tradition, it should be thawed out and revived.
The purpose of this work is not to enter a scholastic debate of establishing or disputing some philosophical statement or supporting or disproving the origin and period of some other statement. Its main theme is the religious disciplines prescribed for the citizen, the common man, by the Jain philosophers. Once understood in modern context, they will automatically raise the curiosity of people who have active interest and dedication towards reviving lost values for the benefit of humanity. They might go deeper and dig out the philosophical truth from the heaps of religious jargon.
To see how the Jain process of thinking and clarity of logic evolved, one needs only to look at any of the basic principles as described in the Jain texts and observe how elaborately every possible facet has been covered. The Jain texts convey the strength of each basic principle of philosophy, and also allow the possibility of progressive flexibility in applying it to social ways.
In its most simple form, the Jain philosophy starts with its conception of the fundamentals in nature: Jiva (soul), Ajiva or Jada (matter), dakaash (space), Dharma (motion), Adharma (inertia), and Kaal (time). From these, the exposition progresses to the hypothesis that all life is the result of the interaction of the two fundamentals soul and matter, and that the goal of every individual should be to free the soul from the bondage of matter.
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