Harmless Soul

Author(s): W J Johnson, Dayanand Bhargav
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 23

Early Jainism 9 committed by someone else. 18 Schubring, however, translates na samanujānejjā as '(the monk) should not allow others who perform a violent action to do so'. 19 The complete passage reads:
Towards these six groups of souls (i.e. all jīvas ) he should not perform any act of violence himself, nor cause it to be performed by others, nor allow others who perform it to do so.
Schubring's version is clearly the more uncompromising of the two. In his reading a proper act of 'mind' is not simply a matter of disapproval (which is internal, a question of attitude), rather it is a matter of not allowing other people to perform himsā. It is possible that the Jains themselves, or some Jains (the ambiguity of the term permits different interpretations and so different responses to the viotence of others), started with the uncompromising sense - one should not allow others to commit violence if one is aware of their action - and later internalised the idea to a matter of attitude, of approval or disapproval. (Just how a monk could prevent others committing violence without causing violence himself, even if, as is possible, the injunction applies only to preventing his fellow monks from transgressing, is clearly problematic.)
In this respect, the evidence of textual passages relating the Jaina attitude to Brahmanical ritual is interesting. As P.S Jaini points out, Jaina attacks on Vedic sacrifice have at times 'reached the proportions of a crusade'.20 In contrast to incidents in the Buddhist texts, where Brahmans seek out the Buddha to engage him in debate, Jaina stories frequently tell of some kind of active protest against, or interference in, Brahmanical rites. This indicates that the
18 Dixit 1978, pp. 88-89. Cf. Norman p. 14, who, in translating Utt. 8:8, renders na ... anujāne as: 'One should not approve ...'.
19 Leumann's ed., p. 84. 20 JPP p. 169.