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Death in the Jain Agamas: An Exploration and Personal Reflection
By Shantilal D. Parakh
The Jain canonical literature is well-known for it's extensive and detailed categorization of the esoteric elements of religion, such as expounding on 156 different types of karma. In this brief paper, I share some the fascinating categorizations around the subject of death and include some personal reflections.
After finishing ayukarma' (age-determining karma), the soul separates from the body. This is maran or death. Anybody who is born certainly has to die. Arihantas, Tirthankaras, and persons who have exhausted all eight karmas3 do not have to be born again - after death, they become siddhas.4
After birth, we are on a journey-long or short, eventful or boring, full of pain and pleasures, turmoil and peace, but always travelling inexorably, one moment at a time, to our final destination - maran - death. It is a journey for which a GPS does not have the coordinates. No-one can tell us: "you have reached your final destination." But the Jain literature does provide some hints, as will be described later.
An ordinary person cannot stop his death. Very few of us seem emotionally and mentally able to cope with the thought of our eventual death. But remember that nobody-nobody can save you from death. There is no way out of death. It is the final exit - the end of life.
If death is 100% certain, then why spoil it by crying, fighting, fearing, and wasting time, energy, and money for a few more moments of life? If there is a way or technique to die only once and become immortal forever, then no matter how hard that path may be, is it not worth investigating and better than dying many many painful deaths in the future?
There is such a technique in Jain dharma, called sallekhana, also known as santhara, sakaam maran, anshan or samadhi maran. All of these essentially refer to death while in a meditative state. The common view in Jain dharma is that the painful experiences of innumerable births and deaths are far worse than the few discomforts and bearable pain that one feels in samadhi
maran.
1Neither diacritics nor devanagari script are used in this paper. Transliteration closest to the pronounciation is given.
Maran is commonly used in Jain scriptures, equivalent to Sanskrit mrityu. Both maran and mrityu are used interchangeably.
These are the eight basic karmas known to most Jaina, as opposed to the more extensive 156-fold classification mentioned earlier.
4 Jain dharma says that we reincarnate immediately after death, so there is no need for rituals. Hindus believe that it takes 12 to 13 days to sever the connection between the body and family. Some Buddhists believe in the state of bardo where the being lingers for 49 days after death.
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