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Ācārānga in its first chapter talks of six types of living beings; air bodied, water bodied, fire bodied, earth bodied and plant bodied that are with one sense organ and stationery i.e. cannot move on their own; and trasa or the living being, which can move to achieve their objectives and have 2 to 5 sense organs. It suggests that the souls of all living being are similar to our own soul.
When we think of the source or origin of violence, we come to our thought process first. Whatever we do in our life, we first think through either hastily or in a planned manner all the activities we are going to undertake along with their consequences. Thus the beginning of any violent activity starts with our thinking or mind. Jains say that the thinking of violence is directly related to our feelings of attachment or aversion to those against whom we wish to be violent. Hence we first use our mind and then to implement himsā by body and speech. We thus see that if we think of hims3 we have committed it already even if we do not implement/express it by body or speech due to our inadequacies or other circumstances. Similarly the motive behind our thought and the intensity thereof also contribute to the type of violence we commit.
Talking of the results of himsā, karma doctrine of Jains say the one who commits violence will also be caused pain suitably either immediately or in future. We observe this in our own life as 'when we think of committing violence we are preoccupied with the cruel thoughts as love, compassion etc disappear and our body starts showing ill effects like hypertension, anxiety, sleeplessness etc! The hinsya naturally is a victim who suffers the results even though not involved in the act. Thus Jains have classified himsā as demerit pāpa or sin.
2.0 Dimensions of Himsā: Historical evidence is available from religious story literature like Adipurāna, Rāmāyaṇa, and Mahābhārata and other Jain purāṇas. Our own observations of recent times show the deadly and at times devastating results of violence committed as the coverage of violence and mass killing is increasing regularly.
1 Adipurāņa: Bharat Bahubali dual; 2 Rāmāyana: Killing of individual/s 3 Mahābhārata: Killing of a family/s. 4 1965-75: Community or countries affected 5 1980s-: The entire world getting affected.
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STUDY NOTES version 5.0
