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HERE-NOW4U:Bruhn : The Fundamentals of Jaina Ethics - Salvation http://www.here-now4u.de/eng/spr/religion/Bruhn/Erloesung.html
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reader).
Naturally, even the earliest Jainas recognized and acknowledged in a general manner the difference between killing a water-being (when using water for one purpose or another) and killing a deer (while hunting) -- and killing a human being. This natural world-view was to some extent, but not very effectively, supported by the concept of a hierarchy of beings (<six> classes). Moreover, the identity of all souls was such a fundamental truth that no argument could have produced true differences: There were many types of living beings, but there was only one type of soul, and at least in the context of possible himsa it was the soul that mattered and not the being with its specific features. Thus the Jaina concept of ahimsa became idiosyncratic from the point of view of ordinary ethics.
However, the total equality of all beings was a theoretical matter and caused few practical problems. No doubt, the monk was always afraid of killing (crushing, hurting, molesting) water-beings and other small and smallest creatures. But he did not practise ahimsa even in the case of small beings, but only in their case. That a monk (or a lay-follower) did not injure higher organisms was a matter of course and required no special regulations and considerations. Besides, the lay-follower lived mainly in the "fear of food". For him, ahimsa was in the first place strict vegetarianism and above that careful distinction between admitted and prohibited vegetarian food (a distinction which was largely based on archaic views on plant-life). In other words, the Jainas lived (and acted) in a small world where the absence or presence of hierarchical order was a matter of little consequence, and this is the situation up to the present day.
Another problem is the path to salvation. Not only do we not have a Jaina theory of karman-annihilation (how to annihilate the noxious karman), we also do not get a systematic and co-ordinated presentation of the virtues which ultimately lead to the annihilation of karman. We find impressive lists of virtues and vices, but no ethical theory. There are (a) precepts which. are in keeping with the various statutes of ancient India, and there are (b) peculiar precepts like the rigorous ahimsa and the rigorous asceticism which are conditioned by the specific philosophy of Jainism. Additional variety is created by some rules which received due attention in our article but do not all belong to the bed-rock of Jainism: the eulogies on alms-giving, rules concerning repentance and asking for forgiveness, and ritual (including deportment). Alms-giving is the sine qua non of Jaina monasticism, but it is also an altruistic virtue within a religion which otherwise views human individuals in isolation rather than in communication. Repentance (as well as the combination of repentance, and asking for forgiveness, with confession and atonement) creates specific problems as it does not harmonize with other (more theoretical) approaches to the question of sin (evil acts) and of the karmic consequences of sin. Thirdly, ritual is natural to some extent, but Jainism produced along with conventional ritual extremes of ritualization, and these are not in keeping with a philosophy of salvation. The only link between all the injunctions is then an unnamed common denominator which consists of discipline, self-denial etc.
Most of these features can be regarded as natural if oppositions are considered a normal analytical instrument (e.g. "the monk as solitary being: the monk as social being"), but they are disturbing if a harmonizing approach is the standard.
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01.04.99 13:16
