ISJS Jainism Study Notes E5 Vol 03

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

Page 49

SCHOOL
TIONAL
OF
SELF STUDY IS THE
SUPREME AUSTERITY,
STUDIES
ignoring the original treatises, references and their true spirit, tend to take a lop-sided view and reduce Ahimsa into a mere negative principle or practice, depriving it of its humaneness and nobility.
2.1 Definitions and interpretations of Ahimsa
The glory of non-violence as a doctrine of religion has arisen from the vision of similarity of souls. This doctrine is narrated and analyzed in the agamas as follows:
1. All violence deserves to be discarded because it leads to sorrow and fear. This is the basic argument of the doctrine of non-violence.
2. Violence means ending somebody's life or torturing others. Still, the blemishes born of violence depend only on infatuation or attachment and jealousy etc. If there is no infatuation or attachment, mere ending cannot come under the category of violence. This constitutes an analysis of non-violence.
3. The purports of the blemish do not depend upon the relative importance of the size, number and senses of the living beings that are killed. It depends upon the result of the violating persons or the intensity or the otherwise, his knowing or unknowing action or the use of force. This constitutes the purport of non-violence.
The three matters mentioned above became fruitful in the thought and conduct of lord Mahāvīra and are woven in the Agamas. Howsoever spiritual an individual or a group of individual's may be, when they ponder over the question of sustaining life with self-control, the above mention analysis and stages naturally arise from it.
However so let us see how non-violence developed further on in the light of various sects of Jainism.
Jainism has two broad sects namely Svetambaraand Digambara. Both these sects are further splintered into large number of sub-sects, which are headed by different Acāryas, many of whom have defined Ahimsa in their own way, unmindful of canon and original texts. Some of them brazenly describe the positive aspects of Ahimsa, like saving the lives of man and other creatures, feeding the hungry, providing water to thirsty, helping the sick with medicines etc, as undesirable, because in their view, these activities result in generating of karmas, which inhibit one's liberation. They treat such activities as an expression of attachment, which according to them is the cause of bondage and not salvation.
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STUDY NOTES version 5.0