Concept of Pancasila in Indian Thaought

Author(s): Kamla Jain
Publisher: P V Research Institute Varanasi

Page 71

The Concept of Pancasila in Indian Thought already killed or decided to kill. In this manner this classification regards violence as of one and eighty varieties.
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'Killing is an exhaustive term in the Jaina system that means depriving some one of any of its vitalities (prāņa) which are ten in number.1 Among these ten vitalities, five vitalities are of five senses, i. e. sense of sight, sense of hearing, sense of smell, sense of taste and sense of touch; out of the rest three vitalities are of mind, speech and body; and the last two vitalities are the vitality of breathing and the vitality of life. With reference to each one of these vitalities violence can be of ten types. Even these vitalities are subdivided into two types, viz. dravya and bhāva (physical and psychical). Thus violence can be of twenty types. This classification also refers both to the object (one who is killed) and to the subject (one who kills). All the living beings, however, do not possess all the vitalities, the possession of the vitalities depend upon the physical and spiritual growth of the individual, but a living being must possess some of these vitalities (at least four of them). Here it needs to be made clear as to why speech and the body are independently added to the already enumerated five vitalities of senses which also include the tongue or the sense of taste and the sense of touch, which donot apparently differ from speech and the body. The reason is that the vitality of taste is actually different from the vitality of speech and the violence committed by taste is different from that done by speech. Similarly, the violence committed by the sense of touch is to be distinguished from that done by the body. Touch is a special faculty of the body. Samkhya has clarified this point by making a two-fold division of jäänendriyas and karmendriyas. Nevertheless the discussion on the vitalities refers to the object (one who is killed). A critical analysis of the object is made in the Jaina texts in connection with violence, but the emaphasis is laid on the subject (the doer) in the act of
1. Sthan. 1.48.
2.
Four vitalities: vitalities of life, breathing, touch and body. -Pra. Sāro. 1066.