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JAIN JOURNAL
life as sacred and those who condemned himsā' (injury) of any type should have so little regard for life as to preach self-destruction.
(e) It is for this reason that the Jainas considered wanton self-destruction by the other methods like taking poison and falling down a precipice as suicide, bāla-marana, and as such unjustifiable. 26
The word suicide as employed in the popular sense includes all cases of self-destruction, irrespective of the mental conditions the person commiting the act. In its technical and legal sense, it means self destruction by the same person, or voluntary and intentional destruction of his own life by a person of sound mind, who has attained years of discretion. 27 In this sense samlekhanā would not be suicide as it is not self destruction at all. There is gradual modification of the flesh without causing any appreciable physical and mental disturbance. The self is to be freed from the bonds of the body. From the ultimate point of view niścaya naya the self is pure and indestructible. The practice of samlekhanā is compared to operating on a boil on the body, which cannot be called destruction of the body. In this sense samlekhanā is described as the final freedom of the soul from the bonds of life.
Whatever else may be the legal implications of suicide, we have to remember that samlekhanā is to be looked at from the spiritual point of view.
We are in a world where spiritual values have declined. The flesh is too much with us. We do not look beyond and 'pine for what is not. Samlekhana is to be understood as physical mortification, self culture and spiritual salvation.
Reprinted from The Voice of Ahimsa, vol. 34, No. 2-3 (June-July, 1984).
"• Mack, W., Corpus Juris, Vol. LX, 1932, p. 995. *7 Abhidhana Rajendra, Vol. VII, p. 220.
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