Ahimsa the Ultimate Winner

Author(s): N P Jain
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 87

Jain Yogashastra gives a comprehensive definition of Nonviolence thus:
"Reverence for life is the supreme religious teaching Non-injury to life is the supreme moral guidance Giving freedom from fear to life is the supreme act of giving
Non-violence to life is the supreme renunciation".
This is not a narrow religious thought or creed. It is a universal truth. In his famous classic 'Les Miserables', Victor Hugo maintains.
"Life is to give and not to take"
Mahatma Gandhi was from his childhood deeply influenced by the Jain culture of Non-violence; India's non-violent struggle for independence from British colonial rule stands out as a striking example of the successful and effective application of the instrument of non-violence in the political arena. Likewise Mahatma Gandhi's disciple Vinoba Bhave tried it out in the field of land reforms through his Bhoodan (Land gift) movement. He persuaded hundreds and thousands of landlords to voluntarily and freely distribute lands to the landless and give up the path of violent and vicious exploitation.
The first half of the twentieth century has been witness to two world wars. The second half has been witness to Hiroshima, to the phenomenal increase in nuclear arsenal of unimaginable destructive potential, and to a large number of local and regional wars and conflicts. In the last decade frightening growth of terrorism and the intensity of the cult of violence all over the world has been very disturbing and bodes ill for the future. However it is wrong to expect that the answer to violence is more violence. Far from solving problem, it creates increasingly unnerving situation.
Non-violence must be recognized and used as a potent instrument to safeguard political morality and social
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Ahimsa: The Ultimate Winner