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168
Illuminator of Jaina Tenets
(Lustre IX
them and selling their meat. On the way some saints met him. One of them asked the butcher "Is not a goat afraid of death as you are ?" The butcher gave the reply in the affirmative. The saint lectured the butcher on the sins of killing living animals and he was made to realise the gravity of the sins he was incurring. He gave up his profession and become a changed man.
Now the question is : Which of the two acts, the conversion of the butcher to pure life or the saving of the lives of innocent animals constitute spiritual merit ? The answer is that merit lies in the purification of the butcher's heart, and the saving of the lives of animals is only a consequence which has no spiritual value by itself.
(3)
It was midnight. Three saints were having a night stay in a shop in a market and were reciting scriptures. By a coincidence three young men were coming around the corner. The saints interrogated the young men "Why are you moving about in this unearthly hour and what is your objective?" They were frightened. But finding that the interrogators were saints, they were reassured. However, after deliberation they told the truth that they were going to visit a hetaera to keep a tryst. The saints said, “You are men of good dispositions since you have spoken the truth. It does not become you to be engaged in such an ignoble work. You cannot hope to get rid of passion by indulgence. Self-restraint is the means to it." After a good deal of expostulation the young men were converted to righteousness. They gave up the idea of visiting the hetaera. But the woman in question was waiting for them, and finding them late came out in search of the young men and by chance saw them seated near the ascetics. She remonstrated them and wanted to take them to her residence. But they declined. The woman held out a threat that in case they turned a deaf ear to her overtures, she would jump into the well and put an end to her life. The youths were adamant. The woman was as good as threats. She committed suicide by jumping into a well.
Now we have to ponder over the morals of the stories. In the last one, three young men were saved from a life of infamy. But it led to the eventual death of a public woman. In the story of the thief the merchant's property was restored and the thief was turned to a better life. In the story of the butcher, the butcher underwent a change of heart and gave up his vile profession and the brutes uere saved. Wherein lies the spiritual merit ? According to Jaina ethics it is the purification of the heart which is entitled to rank as righteousness. As regards the death of the hetaera, the sin accruing from it cannot be laid at the door of the young men or the saints. These stories have been employed to throw light on the ethical judgment of the Jaina philosophers.
The faultless and immaculate compassion is one that does not entail any kind of violence for observing it. The incidental, that is causally unrelated, protection of life or injury to it, does not affect the genuineness of the compassion. The motive behind compassion is the promotion of self-restraint (sarnyama) and abstinence from any type of injury to life, even at the cost of supreme sacrifice, resulting in end of one's own life. The essence of compassion is refraining from all types of victimization of any kind of living being, gross or subtle. Violence for the promotion of non-violence is an absurd concept. It entails a chain of violence without end.
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