Jain Moral Doctrine

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

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JAIN MORAL DOCTRINE
ceive their sanctity and binding character, not simply because they were laid down by the Arhat but really because the very activities and the successful attainments in the life of the Arhat demonstrated that the acts which are the subject-matters of those commandments were really conducive to his own welfare as well as to the best welfare of man. This conception of God, not only as an omniscient being but as a man, struggling for and finally attaining through continuous efforts, both subjective and external, self-perfection, is unique in Jainism. This conception of God supplies the nucleus, not only for a universal religion but also the basis of a faith in the efficacy of moral acts. The simple fact may be illustrated thus: Why is non-violence a moral act? Because God has said so. Why has God so commanded and why should we take his word on trust? Because God was originally an ordinary man struggling for the perfection of his nature who in his life actually found that 'non-viol. ence' did lead to his perfection straight.
The 'other-pointing-ness' involved in the nature of a moral act, thus means, in Jainism, that by doing it, you follow the command of God; but it does not mean that thereby you please the God. Because the God, the Arhat, is completely unconcerned with what we do or do not. By doing the moral act, we act on the commandment of God in pursuance of a right faith in his infallibility, with the result that we are put on the way to our own spiritual developmentjust as the Arhat in his life successfully resorted to the act for his self-perfection.
The question of the possibility of attaining omniscience does not interest a modern thinker. It seems, however, to have been an important problem upon which heated debates were held in ancient India. The great school of the Mîmāmsaka's actually denied the reality of any omniscient being. At any rate people who do not place implicit faith in the teachings of the Arhats as embodied in the Jaina scriptures, will not be prepared to base the moral character of the ethical injunctions on the authoritative testimony of the Arhats. According to these moralists, the moralness of an action depends upon the actual good, it does to the State or the Community The cardinal virtues in ancient Greece were those, the practice of which made one an useful citizen. The utilitarians as well as the humanists of modern times look upon an act as moral, which does *the greatest good to the greatest number'. In this sense also a moral act is 'other-pointing', in as much as its moral character depends on facts and circumstances outside the agent's self,
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