Economics of Mahaveera

Author(s): Mahapragna Acharya
Publisher: Adarsh Sahitya Sangh

Page 60

44
ECONOMICS OF MAHAVIRA
fear”. After a few days he again came to the sorcerer. The sorcerer asked, “Are you all right now? Do you still get fear?" He said, “I am not afraid of anything now, but one fear still persists that the talisman may get lost?”
Whenever a person resorts to excessive consumption, his fear is what if he misses it. After wearing too many ornaments the fear that overtakes the wearer is that some pieces may drop through oversight, somebody may steal them, somebody may snatch them away. Every extra consumption is accompanied with fear. The limitation of a part of surplus consumption will remove the fear arising out of surplus consumption.
Limitless Craving There is obviously no limit to the maximum. There is no end even beyond the craving for a lakh, a million or a billion. Unending this craving creates turbulence in the mind and fills it with tension.
Principle of Limitation The society created by Mahavira was a well-to-do society. It was not a poor and resourceless society. It was a prosperous society which was a result of the wisdom of restraint. At that time, there used to live together hundreds of persons under a joint family system. There was a family of Anand, an ideal follower. He put a limit of forty million gold coins to be used to earn interest and forty million gold coins to remain in the depository. He relinquished all that was more than this. He decided to put a limit to his possessions of land, building, cowsheds. A definite limit of the accumulated wealth was fixed.
Two Principles of Control Mahavira maintained that no rules can be prescribed for the limitation of earning or accumulation of wealth. It is possible that some one may fix a higher limit. Mahavira circumscribed the maximum on two sides: