Charlotte Krause her Life and Literature

Author(s): Shreeprakash Pandey
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

Page 82

An Interpretation of Jaina Ethics
37
2. Samvara
Samvara, or the act of preventing fresh Karma from streaming into the soul, can be accomplished by various ways of ethical conduct, which, in Jaina tradition, are arranged in a system of six classes. All of them are permeated by two commanding principles, viz., Non-injury and Self-control.
In Jaina Ethics, the principle of non-injury has been developed to an incomparable height. The Jaina dogma teaches that the Universe is filled with souls in various stages of development, or better, degrees of infection through Karma, from irrational Nigodas upto omniscient Siddhas, who, free from the dirt of Karma, live, bodiless, at the top of the Universe, far away from all worldly concerns. Between these two extremes, there are those numberless classes of creatures : beings with one sense, and without the gift of spontaneous locomotion, which comprise the earth bodies, such as earth, stone, metals and all kinds of minerals in their natural state; then water bodies such as water, ice, mist; fire bodies, such as flames, sparks; wind bodies such as air, storm, etc. and plant bodies, such as leaves, stems, flowers, roots, seeds, etc. Then, there are the beings with two, three, four and five senses, comprising the whole animal kingdom, the classes of gods, the inhabitants of the hells and men.
In all these various beings, there is one and the same kind of immortal soul, gifted with the four great qualities, and able to display them, under certain conditions. Therefore, it is sin to injure any of its manifestations, in whatever state and condition it might be. It is sin, it creates bad Karma and suffering, and it detracts the soul from the path leading to Perfection. The higher the stage of development of the injured being is, ( i.e., the closer it has approached the state of Perfection ), the heavier the sin of the injury committed is considered to be. The sin of hurting a plant is smaller than that of hurting a lizard, the sin of hurting a bullock is smaller than that of hurting a man, and the sin of hurting a criminal is