Jain Journal 1980 04

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

Page 24

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JAIN JOURNAL
in prose is considered to belong to a slightly later stage. All this implies that the Jainas formulated this concept of yoga-triplet after the Buddhist classification of karma in connection with karaña-triplet.
Mahavira promulgated that anārambha or non-violence to the six classes of beings is the pathway for liberation. And since his nonviolence received from Parsva was based on the primitive animist position and vaira theory, any physical action committed by a being could not escape committing violence to the other visible or invisible beings. Vaira meaning anger, hostility, enmity, etc. is here understood as the principle of retribution that a victim emits at the slaughterer to return due revenge when violence is committed on him. Thus on the part of a convict, vaira is the very sin committed by himself. Mahavira then proposed that the action committed without any intention of violence was free from guilt. At the same time he created a rule that a monk was responsible for his sinful action if it was directly committed by himself, if it was indirectly committed by the other for his sake, and if he approved the fact that it was indirectly committed by the other for his sake, for in these three cases he is the immediate agent of the intention of violence.
Since vaira is emitted by a victim when he is physically injured by a slaughterer, but not when there is the presence of mere intention of violence or verbal violence (speech was understood as material in the later canonical stage), it must have been considered that monk is responsible of his physical action committed by karaña-triplet. Mahavira's rules of practice exemplified in the early Jaina canon are therefore based on the prohibition of physical action harmful to the visible and invisible beings. However Mahavira clearly admitted that the presence of the intention of violence is the worst sin. Likewise he is described in the Acāra 1.9 that he kept silence as far as possible, and he constantly taught his disciples to practise samiti, gupti, samyama and samvara (which are used in the synonymous sense in the Acāra I and Sütrakyta I) to control themselves and their senses. This indicates that Mahavira himself never neglected the action committed by mind and speech. However, he did not obviously feel the need of expressing action by the three media as Buddha did.
1 Dixit, K.K.: “The Problems of Ethics and Karma Doctrine as Treated in the
Bhagavati Sutra”, in Sambodhi II-3, p.4 · Dixit, K.K.: Ibid., p.6 3 Acara 1.5.4.301, Sutrakrta I.1.2.52, etc.