Basic Thought Of Bhagwan Mahavir

Author(s): Jaykumar Jalaj
Publisher: Hindi Granth Karyalay

Page 9

RESPECT FOR JIV & AJIV Mahavir's penance gave him the gift of the Truth that matter/thing/substance or the existance is eminent. As such, be it a Jiv (living) or an Ajiv (non-living or insentient matter), we should treat them with respect. The importance of this conceptually amazing experience is revealed to us with the fact that it took over two thousand five hundred years for modern science to deduce and appreciate this theory. We could comprehend it only in the 20th century, through Einstein. Again, political science had to wait for over two thousand years to follow this enunciation. It could be understood only at the time of the French Revolution.
Einstein understood it in relation to inanimate objects, and the French Revolution with reference to human beings. But Mahavir had the self-realisation in the context of everything sentient and insentient. He was concerned not only with human rights or rights of beings but those of all living and non-living beings.
MOBILE AND IMMOBILE BEINGS Today, the world is worried about saving the environ. ment - water, forest and land. We should be pleasantly surprised to learn that Mahavir considers them living entities and not non-living. In his esteemed view, there are two types of organisms in the Universe. Tras or Jangam (mobile) and Sthavar (immobile). Conch, ant, black bees, and animals/ men are two, three, four and five sensed (indriya) mobile (tras) beings (Jivas) respectively. They can resist. They can walk on their own. On the other hand are those who can neither resist nor walk (such as earth, water, fire, air and plants). They are called immobile beings (Sthavar Jivas). In Jain scriptures, they are classified as Prithvikaya, Jalakaya, Tejakaya, Vayukaya and Vanaspatikaya ekendriya Jivas. Putting the sthavar Jivas in danger, their wastage and unnecessary usage is also violence in the eyes of Mahavir. Gradually, our modern scientific experiments are confirming Mahavir's realisation of life in these organisms.