Ahimsa the Science of Peace

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

Page 74

purifying the soul, the stress shifted towards negating the grosser acts of violence. Abstinence became the purpose. The degree of abstinence started being expressed simply by counting hypothetical number of living beings, which would supposedly be destroyed in any physical act.
The result is that we are more interested in hot but worthless debates on minor points like whether or not use of electricity and many other modern facilities is sinful. The much more alarming problems of corruption, adulteration, and dowry, cheating, etc. find hardly any place in the so called religious debates.
There comes a typical argument, from the hard-core traditionalists. “The applied form of philosophy is not religion but social rule. It cannot be justified on the grounds of philosophical principles. As such, one should always follow the rules laid down in scriptures and accepted by tradition.”
It is an age old and invalid argument born out of traditional prejudice. The philosophical truth is abstract and is a concern of individual experience. When it is applied to the social life, it has to be adapted to the predicament of the group of beings and to the level of consciousness of its individual constituents. The rules of the scriptures have to be mellowed down to attain certain amount of flexibility. The infinite varieties of species living in an elastic biome cannot be governed by a rigid set of rule.
Study of animal physiology and behaviour reveals that the nature and selective evolution has provided every living being with the means to survive and procreate in its natural habitat. The structure of a body reveals its natural habits, which depend upon its habitat. Its attitudes too depend on the requirements for survival. At this level the natural urge
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