Jain Journal 2004 01

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

Page 40

S.R. BANERJEE: UNDERSTANDING JAIN RELIGION
165
There is a Tamil book, "Tolkāppiyam', which is one of the oldest Tamil literary works belonging to about the 3rd centuty B.C., speaks about ahimsā. It is in three parts. The first deals with phonology of centamiz, that is, the letters (ezuttu) of Tamil. The second deals with words, forms and inflections (col) and the third has literature (porul), and 'alankara'as well. In this literature too there are some passages on Ahimsā. I have read a translation of the Kural' belonging to the 3rd or 4th cent. A.D., a very famous Tamil literature, which, some claim, was written by the Jains; and I find that it describes Ahimsā as one of the great domestic and ascetic virtues.
So when the Jains started establishing the truth in accepting Ahiṁsā as fundamental of human life, they started philosophizing it, prepared a logic and ultimately tried their best to establish Ahimsă as a kind of philosophy. That is why whenever we talk of Jainism, we relate it to Ahinsa. It is thus described or delineated by almost all types of people.
Finally, another important aspect of Jainism is the 'karma' theory. Why does any life, be it human or animal, get rebirth? According to Buddhism, it is because we have tanhā (trọnā) 'desire'. When this desire is not fulfilled in this life we are reborn again to fulfil our desires. In Hinduism many reasons are given for rebirth. One of them is that as the Cittasuddhi has not been done in this life, we are reborn. It is the Jains who say that we are born again and again, because our ‘karmakşaya'is not yet done completely. It is because you have not completely eradicated the effect of karma that you have done in this life, you are bound to take your birth again. So rebirth is common to all philosophies, but the reasons of rebirth are different. It is only the Jains who believe that as long as karma is not destroyed, beings are bound to come back again.
When someone starts preaching, even if it be the basic truth, if it is not currently popular, then one meets with lots of resistance. This has happened all over the world. For example, the whole of Greece once thought that Socrates was mad, because the ideas he had put forth were very new to the then existing society. Similarly, Mahāvīra also encountered with lots of oppositions when he started preaching his ideas. The first encounter that Mahāvīra met with was Lord Buddha.