Jain Journal 1970 01

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 73

JANUARY, 1970
themes from an electrically lyrical Jainology, began in Gujarat in the early twelfth century and lasted five hundred years. Style was linear, color surface flat, background red or blue, ornamentation richly gold, face in profile with nose elongated, chin pointed, and farther eye projected. Today the art world knows this is the Indian style of painting. Now we know it was originlly Jaina style. As regards the exact sciences, the Indian plant physiologist Sir J. C. Bose is world renowned for his experiments in our own century that proved the consciousness principle in the plant kingdom. Yet about the sixth century B.C., the last teacher Mahavira sent his favorite disciple packing because he denied the plant consciousness principle ! So we see how wholly Jainism classifies the sub-human vegetable kingdom as having life-consciousness. Their bodies are subject to pain by reason of their vitality of touch. And touch was a decisive factor in the Bose experiments. Yes, when we cut vegetables, they feel pain, yet they cannot cry out, they lack the vitality of speech. We see how the Bose experiments in our century dignify the actual being of the Jaina soul-conscious principle in the vegetable kingdom. This principle, deeply intuitive in archaic Jainism, is yet another facet of the completed and exalted Jaina religion.
15. What in the Jaina opinion is the Jaina crowning jewel?
the Jaina Ahimsā, or the theory and practice of non-injury to all living beings. Here our key words are 'all' and 'practice'. Other religions share the theory, but the practice they reduce to a fanciful speculation. As regards all, Jainism has followed an all-inclusive Ahimsa from that time before the sun and moon were visible in the sky, order, and justice. We call it single standard because it applied equally to all without exception. Ancient Jaina dialectic equated non-injury to life principle, not to physical dimensions. Is not the life principle in the child equal to the life principle in the man? Is not the life principle in the ant equal to that in the elephant? And in the ant equal to the child? Rational people do not even consider harming the child, why do they rashly harm the ant? Alas, the Western noninjury is the double standard, like elastic, more lenient for some than for others. Not the evildoer's dear ones, but the cockroach in the morning, the food animal in he afternoon, and in the dark of the night?... We see how the double standard can lead to human disorientation, to the "crazy, mixed-up" complex of the West. Would you not shudder for your little child to walk alone on a dark street in a Western community ? Conversely, would you not breathe easy for your child to walk in a Jaina community where not even your pet dog would be injured? So to your children and your animals alike, as to all living beings both Jaina and non-Jaina, the Jaina Ahimsa is the crown jewel of the religion.
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