Bhagavana Mahavira and his Relevance in Modern Times

Author(s): Narendra Bhanavat, Prem Suman Jain, V P Bhatt
Publisher: Akhil Bharat Varshiya Sadhumargi Jain Sangh

Page 111

Mahāvīra and His Relevance
of the deep insight of our ancient teachers than their recognition of non-violence (Ahimsā) as the first and the greatest of the principles of higher life.
Non-Violence (Ahimsa) :
The Role of Force and Fraud in History-So far human relationships have been regulated very largely, though not exclusively, through the instrument of brute force, that is through the exertion of superior prowess by individuals, groups, classes, nations or races to exploit others, to keep them in subordination, and to make them minister to their own interests. All this has constituted a standing negation of the worth of personality as personality, the dignity of man as man. Human adjustments have thus been permeated by force and fraud, so that a modern sociologist has concluded that they are just the principles on which civilisation has so far been based.
War in the Social Context :
It is necessary to point out that war, armament and Machiavellian diplomacy are not isolable phenomena. Immediate motives and occasions apart, they represent a method of pressing claims, a way of resolving disputes; in short, an instrument of policy natural to a scheme of things which admits the validity of violence (Hiṁsā) and is grounded in part in the exertion of force by group upon group. If disputes have been settled on the plane of force, it is because social life has been moving on the corresponding planes of hatred, frustration and exploitation. They have permeated international relationships, internal organisation, literature and outlook so deeply. Force and fraud are still writ so largely over associated life that reform must be anchored to the first principles. A tremendous effort, rational and moral, is needed to bring home to the world that a way out of the present strife into universal peace and welfare lies in revising human relationships so as to substitute the principle of non-violence (Ahiṁsā) for that of force. Lesson of Experience in International Affairs :
The experience of the League of Nations, set up in 1919, and that of disarmament commissions and conferences, which continued upto 1934, demonstrated that the elimination of war, which is really a symptom, depends on the elimination of the deeper cause -- the
violence which underlies group adjustments all round. A move to