JAINA Convention 2009 07 Los Angeles

Author(s): Federation of JAINA
Publisher: USA Federation of JAINA

Page 30

15th Biennial JAINA Convention 2009
Ecology - The Jain Way
THE ENVIRONMENTAL AND
of, and reverence for, all forms of life. He
included in his definition of life not only all beings ECOLOGICAL TEACHINGS OF
that can move, but also the earth, air, water and TIRTHANKARA MAHAVIRA
vegetation. Moreover, he considered any injury Sadhvi Shilapi
to these forms of life a sinful act. "Vegetation has shilapiji@hotmail.com
life just as human beings have life," he stated. "It is born as are human beings; its body grows and
feels pain when pricked or cut with weapons." Sadhvi Shilapiji has been the Mahavira further proclaimed that anyone who Education Director of Veerayatan - neglects or disregards the existence of earth, air, Kutch since 2001 when the campus water, and vegetation disregards his own was first established to help the existence, which is intrinsically bound up with victims of the devastating earthquake. them. She holds a Master of Commerce degree from Delhi University, and a
This notion of the symbiotic relationship of Master of Philosophy degree from King's College, humans to their environment appears in the London. She began her spiritual journey at the earliest Jain scriptures, including in the Adipurana, age of 26. Her proficiency in six languages has the epic poem about the first Tirthankara, enabled her to touch the lives of a wide cross- Rusabha Dev. This text emphasizes that forests section of people in India and abroad. Sadhvi moderate the climate, protect against Shilapiji frequently lectures at Oxford, Harvard
thunderstorms and floods, shelter the neighboring and other international institutions.
areas from cold winds, and enable the constant
flow of rivers. They provide a habitat for wildlife, THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS
fodder for animals, innumerable industrial raw We are in the midst of an unprecedented materials, and countless sources of vegetation environmental and ecological crisis, at the centre with medicinal and healing properties. It is thus of which, clearly, lies the human race. It is the the duty of all to protect and preserve the forest. human community, among all forms of life on this planet, which is interfering with the laws of nature Mahavira actively propagated these ideas and by squandering her gifts and destrong other went on to make the protection and care of life in species. Ironically, the recent and urgent desire all its manifestations an obligatory duty for all to protect the environment has not arisen because
Jains. Some may think that divine-human we have begun to hear the cries of plants, relations are considered more important than the animals and other forms of life - a direct result of relationship between humans and the natural our maltreatment of them - but because human world. However, sarvajnyata, the perfect life itself is now in danger. That is, the depletion knowledge of Mahavira or of any Tirthankara and of these elements may result in a legacy for our for which we all strive, is not only defined as the children and our grandchildren of compromised knowledge of past, present, and future, but also immune systems, increased infectious disease and as an extraordinary capacity for experiencing the cancer rates, destroyed plants and the disruption pain and pleasure of all beings. Tirthankaras of the food chain. I wonder: Would we have the have attained this great state of empathy by the same concern, the same worry for other forms of purification of their soul. And at the root of the life, if human life had not been in danger? Would Jain path of purification is the concept of ahimsa, we give the protection of the environment a that is, of nonviolence. second thought?
Carefulness so as to avoid violence to all living MAHAVIRA'S LIFE ETHICS
things, as Mahavira defined them, thus became From the beginning, Tirthankara Mahavira
the norm for the Jain way of life. This developed campaigned for ecological preservation not solely to the extent that those who renounce the world because of his desire to protect human life, but are required to take precautions for the protection also because of his concern for the pain suffered of life before every action they perform. It is not by living beings in the animal and vegetable a coincidence, then, that a Jain follower's daily realms. Through scriptures such as the Acaranga prayer includes the following: "I confess to any Sutra (ca.400 BCE), the first in the Svetambara injury caused by the path of my movement, in all Jain tradition, Mahavira fundamentally influenced my comings and goings, in treading on living our understanding of and attitudes toward the things, in treading on seeds, in treading on green environment. In short, he believed in the equality plants, in treading on dew, on beetles, on mould,
on moist earth, and on cobwebs" and so on.