Jain Moral Doctrine

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

Page 42

CHAPTER III
OPERATIVE FACTORS IN IMMORALITY
An inclination towards moral activity implies some dissatisfaction with the actual state of life. The summum bonum or the ultimate moral goal is different from the ordinary fleeting aims of life and moral acts which are supposed to make possible the realisation of that supreme aim of life are necessarily different from one's ordinary activities. Moral actions may be viewed from two standpoints, viz., the negative one about actions which one ought not to do and the positive one about those which one ought to do. If in our ordinary life, its unhappy state is but too manifest to us, it is clear that the activities which are responsible for that unhappy state are to be avoided and simultaneously, of course, acts which tend to bring the realisation of the moral goal of life nearer are also to be positively practised.
The Indian philosophers look upon the empirical existence as a state of bondage and moral life, according to them, is a continuous course of activities for the attainment of freedom from that condition of bondage. The moralists of the Jaina school maintain that the 'Bandha' or the bondage of the self is due to what they call the 'Asrava' or inflow of non-psychical matter into the soul, and that the emancipation or the 'Mokşa' of the self consists in freeing itself from the slavery to that non-psychical substance. A consideration of this Asrava and the Bandha, which will be attempted in this chapter, is necessary, just to see what are the activities which one should avoid. Thereafter, we shall consider the positive aspect of the moral life, i.e., the acts which are to be practised for the progressive approach towards the final blissful state of the Mokşa.