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The Concept of Pancasila in Indian Thought
of the term "datta'. Datta means a thing parted with willingly, and this willingness is threefold. Firstly, a person parts with his belongings and gives to somebody who is held in high esteem, as for example the monks both in the Jaina and the Buddhist systems are held in high esteem and the devotees. give them all that they need for their maintenance. Accepting such things is clearly not adattādāna. Secondly, parting with a thing out of compassion as giving to beggar is called karuņādāna, that too is not adattādāna. Thirdly, exchanging something either in the form of barter or in the form of monetary exchange is also not adattādāna. These three are the categories of 'datta'. The term adattādāna or 'addiņņādāna' (Pāli), it seems, has been used purposely in order to give full recognition to acceptance of food and other necessary things by the monks who depended entirely on begging. However, adattādāna-virati includes all that is called abstinence from theft. And many times, in the Jaina and the Buddhist systems, the 'steya' is used to mean the same adattādāna. These terms are used in both the senses, those of crime and sin, which are not very easy to distinguish in Indian canonical literature, "Most of the terms designating crime or offence in Sanskrit are essentially religious in their nature and no strict line between sins and punishable offences has ever been drawn,"1
Whether stealing is understood in the sense of a crime or in the sense of a sin, the virtue of non-stealing fundamentally originates in non-violence either in the positive sense of maintenance of social order or in the negative sense of abstinence from hurting others by way of depriving them of their property or other necessary belongings. But it is only limited or restricted non-violence pertaining to human beings and not to all living creatures. One who observes this precept has a very strong or healthy feeling of social welfare, (which is
1. E. R. E., vol. 4, p. 283. 2. As in Jainism wealth is regarded as the outer vitality
of a human being.
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