Jain Journal 2004 04

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

Page 21

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JAIN JOURNAL VOL-XXXVIII, NO. 4 APRIL. 2004
awarded Mahatma Gandhi World-Peace-Award for 1995. On receiving the award he observed that his activities bore a kinship to the non-violence that the Mahatma preached, 'non-violence to the environment in which we live'.
Now the question arises, if religion based on ethics is efficient to rid society of evils and set it on way to peace and harmony, where lies the rub?
Dharma has been compared to a cakra (wheel). A wheel fitted properly to a cart becomes functional. Rotated in the void it serves no purpose. Similarly religion (dharma) serves its purpose when applied to life, social life for that matter. A religious system, or any system, stagnates in course of time and polarizes into ritualistic formalities and ideological abstractions. The formalist wears religious outfits, punctiliously offers worship, chants the mantras, contributes to the construction of religious buildings, such as, temples and monasteries, occasionally sets out on pilgrimage and rests assured that he has earned merit enough to deserve plenty in this world and heavenly bliss in the next. Such a one is lauded in society as a religious man. This gives him further encouragement to show off. The ideologist delves deeply into the system, compares, analyzes, finds out the root, traces the development and obscures it with otiose interpretations. This one is honoured as a scholar. He rests on his laurels leaving the practice of religion (dharma) to the care of religious men. His kind multiples in academia. Thus religion is taken to the temples and the monasteries on the one hand and to the academia on the other, and its habitat, the social life, is bereft of it.14
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The circumstances call for a re-orientation of society towards truly religious i.e. ethical culture.
What we have said about Jainism here is true for all religions, provided their ethical systems are duly emphasized and adopted in practice, and formalism and dogmatism are regarded as mere protective coverings, for which they are really meant. In the Uttarajjhayana there is a debate between Keśī, a monk in the line of Pārsvanatha and Gautama, the eldest gaṇaahara of Mahāvīra. The problem is why should there be only four restraints in the preachings of Pārśva and five in those of Mahāvīra and why should the former permit clothes, one below navel and the other above (uttară and antarā), and the