ISJS Jainism Study Notes E5 Vol 03

Author(s): International School for Jain Studies
Publisher: International School for Jain Studies

Page 185

karmas, bonded with the soul, can be in ten states15. Most of these states, except the last one, can be changed to suit the owner by following strenuous ethico-spiritual code of conduct. This doctrine can be utilized to explain the alternate systems of medicine (life style based on earning auspicious karmas, stoppage and annihilation of karmas) and use of medicines (allopathic, homeopathy, āyurvedic etc.
Ethical considerations Ethics deals with right and wrong, good and bad, and ought to do 16. Here the question that confronts us is this: How to determine according to Jainism, what is morally right for a certain agent in a certain situation? Or what is the criterion of the rightness of action? The interrelated question is what we ought to do in a certain situation or how duty is to be determined? The answer of Jain ethics is that right, ought and duty cannot be separated from the good. The equivalent expression in Jain ethics for the term 'right' and 'good' is śubha / auspicious. The criterion of what is right etc. is the greater balance of good over bad that is brought into being than any alternative. Jain ethics holds the teleological theory of right (Maximum balance of non-violence (Ahimsā) over violence (Himsā) as the right-making characteristic).
Does Jain ethics subscribe to act-approach or rule-approach in deciding the rightness or wrongness of actions. Even though Jain preceptors (Ācāryas) have given us moral rules, yet in principle they have followed that every action is to be judged on the goodness of the consequences expected to be produced. This means that Jain ethics accepts the possibility that sometimes these general moral principles may be inadequate to the complexities of the situation and in this case a direct consideration of the particular action without reference to general principles is necessary. This implies that Jain ethics does not allow superstitious rule-worship but at the same time, prescribes that utmost caution is to be taken in breaking the rule, which has been built up and tested by the experience of generations. Example is the unintentional killing of insects due to the walking of a Jain monk who exercises all
15 Bandha or bondage, Sattā or existence, Udaya or activation/realization, Udiraņā or premature fruition, Udvartana or increasing the duration and/or intensity of the karma, Apavartana or reducing the duration of existence and activity, Sankramaņa or interchange of nature, Upaśama or subsidence, Nidhatti or immunization of karmas against certain external activities and Nikācana or immunization of karmas against all external
activities. 16 Prof K. C. Sogani in his paper on 'Religion and morality' in Study Notes of ISIS
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