Jain Moral Doctrine

Author(s): Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: Jain Sahitya Vikas Mandal

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JAIN MORAL DOCTRINE
has for its background or fountain source, the essential nature of man and in this sense only, the capacity for it is innate; but a fullfledged moral living requires a continuous clarification and a more and more perfected conception of that fundamental character of the human nature. Just as some sort of religious consciousness is innate in the sense that all people in whatever stage of progress they may be, have some sort of an idea of a higher being and just as for the purposes of a true religion, this original God-conscious quires to be rationalised until it identifies God with the very essence of man as a spiritual being, moral sense also is intuitive as a bare power of appreciating or appraising an action and a perfect moral life requires a rationalisation of that sense and the truest possible conception of the human nature in its essentiality, i.e., of the human nature as devoid of all exotic influences. The fundamental nature of man is divine in as much as it is endowed with capacities of infinite intelligence, bliss, power and apprehension; the religious sense is a necessary recognition of this nature and a true religion involves the conscious perfection of that essential nature, i.e., an actual development of the ordinary state of man into the perfected nature of God. Exactly the same thing may be said of morality. Human nature with the fourfold capacities is its eternal background and the moral consciousness in its innateness is its counterpart; the moral life involves the effecting of the separation of the original and essential nature of man from the dirt and dross that are attached to it and the establishment of it on its own exclusive self.
We venture to maintain accordingly that religion and morality are in a sense identical phenomena. A religious act is essentially a moral act; both emanate from the same nature of man and involve an intuitive sense of that nature; both in their perfection require the perfection of that original nature of man and a consequent rationalisation of that innate sense. We are not unmindful of the contention of many scholars that a religion unconnected with morality is possible; that many religious acts have been unmoral, some, even immoral; that Buddhism, on the other hand, has been a pure system of morality, absolutely devoid of any conception of God. To us, it appears that this contention is mostly due to a misconception of facts. The distinction between a religious act and a moral act is recognised only in comparatively more recent times. In the earliest ages, there was only one form of value, attachable to an action. An act done in the name of religion, which involved even the grossest form of crueltyeven immorality--was looked upon as meritorious, not only from the religious standpoint but from the
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