Jain Journal 1998 10

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

Page 14

SEKHAR THE ŚRAMANA RESPONSE TO THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT
embodiment of forbearance. Even if his body is destroyed and cut up into hundred pieces with swords and spears he does not conceive any anger against his cruel persecutors.32
Jaina tradition upholds a practice called Sallekhana. This practice has been frankly recognised as religious self purification and it is highly commended for both laity and the monks. It is dealt with a length in the Acarangasūtra (i. vii. 6ff) and its preliminaries are described in detail in the Aurapaccakkhana, the Samthara, the Mahāpaccakkhana and the Candavejjhaya, the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th of the Painnas Jaina tradition also gives a list of those who took to Sallekhana: Tirthankara Pārsva and Aristanemi, 33 monk Khandage, 34 Layman Ambada35 and all those celebrated in the Uvāsagadasão. From the Middle Age till recent years we witness this practice of extreme asceticism : Hemacandra in 1172 A.D., King Kumarapala, 36 a monk at Ahmedabad37 and a nun at Rajkot and so on.
This extreme self-mortification is undertaken when a Jaina monk suffers from a fatal disease or when he is unable to follow the rules of his Order38 or when he is faced with obstacles. The Puruṣārthasiddhyupaya claims that sallekhana is not suicide, because the passions are attenuated. But he who acts with full of passion is guilty of suicide. There are five desires that are fatal at the time of sallekhana namely a desire to live, desire to die, attachment to friends, recollection of pleasures and desire for future pleasures.39 It is almost killing of activity in oneself besides the abnegation of desires.
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Extremism is not accepted in Buddhism. Hence suicide is condemned without qualification : 'A monk who preaches suicide, who tells man-'Do away with this wretched life, full of suffering and sin; ⚫ death is better' in fact preaches murder, is a murderer, is no longer a monk.40 Buddhists object to 'thirst for non-existence' (vibhāvatṛṣṇā)
32. Sikṣāsamuccaya, ibid., p. 103.
33. Kalpasūtra, 168, 182, Hermann Jacobi, Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 22. 34. Bhagavati, p. 300.
35. Ovavāiyasutta, 100.
36. G. Bühler, Über das leben Jaina Monches Hemacandra, Vienna, 1889, p. 50f.
37. for 41 days, 1921 A.D.
38. Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. 4, p. 484, ed. James Hastings, T Clark and T Publication.
39. Puruṣārthasiddhyupaya, ibid. p. 177-178.
40. Pārājika III, Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 13, p. 4.