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AHIMSA
65
this world of micro and macro life and matter is violence and worth curbing. In every life form there is autonomous and reactive movement. The sentient beings have an additional movement, the volitional movement. When we are careful in movement, we are essentially careful in thought.
After emphatically establishing that ignorance, or unawareness of all our subtle motives and movements in the karmic space, greatly determines the actions of a being, the Āchārānga talks of types of actions which should be curbed. Classifying such actions as himsa (violence) the Sūtra opposes them. The reason attributed to this is that the consequence of such actions tarnishes the soul by acquiring karmic dust (pudgala) and leads to anguish, distress, agony, sorrow and death during this or future births.
In the elaboration of the area of violence Āchārānga has enveloped almost all major components of ecology. The description starts with the violence towards earth-bodied (prithivikāya) beings. The traditional definition of earthbodied beings is “minute organism made of and subsisting on the earth-element.” In the same style water-bodied, air-bodied, fire-bodied and plant-bodied beings have been defined before proceeding to the animal world. “Therefore, knowing about the unexpressed sufferings of the earth-bodied [etc.] beings one (the sagacious) should not harm earth bodied beings himself, neither make others do so, nor approve of others doing so” (Āchārānga 1.2.17).
Achārānga gives the first authenticating statement about life in plants by comparing a plant body with human body: “I say:
This human body is born, so is this plant. This human body grows, so does this plant. This human body is conscious, so is this plant. This human body withers when damaged, so does this plant. This human body has food intake, so has this plant. This human body decays, so does this plant. This human body is not permanent, so is this plant.
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