Jain Moral Doctrine

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

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BASIC PRINCIPLES OF RELIGION AND MORALITY
view-point of self-realisation. Even when, later on, religious sense came to be distinguished somehow from the moral one, both religious and moral acts were equally believed to be conducive to the agent's welfare, immediate or ultimate. The process of progressive conversion of powerful Gods into spiritual beings, noticeable in some of the ancient religions, points also to an urge for not dissociating religion from morality. Lastly, it is to be noticed that in the ethical systems like that of Buddhism, the code of moral acts was extolled because of their efficacy in respect of a super-ordinary state which was expressly looked upon as divine and venerated with the utmost fervour of a religion. At any rate, in a supremely developed rational religion, where God is nothing other than the perfected self, no distinction can be drawn between a religious and a moral act, both of them leading to the realisation of the self.
Self-realisation being thus the sole aim and end of both religion and ethics, the claim of any system for supplying a basis for a supposed world-religion and world-ethics must be tested with reference to the conduciveness of its principles to the said aim, viz., the agent's self-realisation.
In light of the foregoing discussions about the fundamental basis of all religions and morality, we may make an estimate of Jainism as a religion and a code of moral practices. If religion is to be supposed to involve a belief in a world-creating God, then the Jaina religion is certainly athestic. On the other hand, religion in its rational form is a belief that every individual soul contains in it the seeds of the attributes of Divinity, viz., infinite Vision, infinite Knowledge, infinite Power and infinite Bliss-So that when fully developed and perfected, a soul becomes God. Jainism has such a belief and although it does not believe in an Architect of the universe, it is nevertheless a God-believing religion, i.e., a rational religion. The perfection of the soul obviously requires a faultless practice of a system of moral practices, all unfailingly pointing to the realisation of the aim of the said rationalised form of religion. Jaina ethics consists in the observance of rules and conduct which leads to the realisation of Godhood of the self. The bases of the Jaina religion and of its code of moral conduct are thus identical. This is what we have meant by a rationalised religion and rationalised ethics and Jainism is one such, par excellence.