Hajarimalmuni Smruti Granth

Author(s): Shobhachad Bharilla
Publisher: Hajarimalmuni Smruti Granth Prakashan Samiti Byavar

Page 981

२८ : मुनि श्रीहजारीमल स्मृति-ग्रन्थ
the concentration of all really serious weapons of war in the hands of the international authority so created, and the conflict of man with himself by organising a world-wide system of public education which would provide for the protection of the individual against at once the hostility of the herd and his own fears. Not only does Beftrand Russell give no name to this new ethic, he even feels that it can scarcely be called an ethic at all, as it primarily depends upon harmony between man and man. To this basic social ethic, of which the characteristic feature is harmony between man and man, the name that was given by the teachers of religion in the East was Ahimsa. It is important to know that when some representatives of the major religions of the world met in Delhi in 1957 in a World conference of Religions and when they felt that it was high time for religions to give up their mutual bickerings and to strive to create an atmosphere of mutual respect and harmony in the world, they could not think of a better way of doing it other than by establishing an institute of research in the potentiality of Ahimsa. Their reasoned faith was that as knowledge is power, the mere bringing out the power of Ahimsa by an objective study of humanities and the great spiritual movements of the world through succeeding ages would act as an impelling force to foster love and brotherhood among men, races and the nations. Ahimsa is in reality the basic social ethic. It takes its birth in sociality in human nature, and it builds its whole edifice on that principle. It emphasises all those qualities which would inexorably lead to the fortification of the social life of mankind by the ending of all conflicts based upon differences of race, religion or creeds. These conflicts, so say the psychologists, are born of human narrowness, selfishness, greed, suspicion, hatred and self-assertiveness. Ahimsa therefore aims at the eradication of all these proclivities of men. It forswears prejudice, ignorance and short-sightedness. Only by the preaching and practice of Ahimsa has the sway of civilisation shown itself in the history of human social evolution. Of all the forces which have functioned in human history as solvents of conflict, Ahimsa has naturally been by far the strongest and the most powerful. Ahimsa alone has stood for integration and emotional understanding as distinguished from the superimposition of one specific belief or habit of life upon another. Conflicts of one kind or another have tormented the world only when the force of Ahimsa as a dominant factor in total human affairs has been allowed to grow weak. Bertrand Russell in his book has pointed his accusing finger to the fact that man's gregariousness is a limited instinct and that beyond a certain degree it is a product rather of self-interest than of instinct. His argument runs as follows: Ants and bees instinctively serve the purposes of their group, they have no need for morals and decalogues and apparently never feel any impulse to sin. Gregarious mammals are not so completely dominated by the herd instinct as ants and bees are, but have less tendency to individualism than human beings have. In human beings there is a constant conflict between the individual and the herd instinct, a conflict which as a rule is subjective and waged in the mind of the individual but occasionally it breaks out into open disagreement. Russell further says that the forms taken by this disagreement depend upon the size and character of the herd. That naturally leads Bertrand Russell to the tracing of the evolution of social grouping from the family to the tribe and thence to the national group. There, however, he stops, we think
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