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PHILOSOPHY:
JAINISM WHICH JAINS MUST REVIVE
AND REINVIGORATE
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A TRADITION
CROMWELL CRAWFORD, UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII
ainism is a religion waiting to be reborn. The likelihood, though, is that its rebirth will take place in the West, rather than in the East. Throughout the ages, Jainism has always been ahead of itself.
Jain E52ation Jain Spirit July-September 1999
The ancient rishis possessed ideas and ideals which could not be fully understood or appreciated in the pre-modern world, and therefore they had to await present developments in order to come into their own. It is this historic fruition of Jainism to contribute toward the making of the new millenium that
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supplies the motivation for Jains to revive and reinvigorate their tradition.
To illustrate the premise that Jainism has ideas and ideals that are eminently relevant to contemporary issues, we take a look at developments in the areas of ecology and theology.
It is common knowledge that people everywhere are facing an environmental crisis in the areas of global warming, biodiversity waste, pollution, population, and nuclear proliferation. We have thrown ourselves all the way back to our primitive beginnings in which the dominant problem on earth was coping with the environment. The only difference between our tribal beginnings and the situation today is that the problems now are of our own making. We have found little difficulty to make the earth accessible, but never manageable. Now the price of our survival is the management of our planet. This calls for a new philosophy in the comprehension and management of our planet.
Jain philosophy has all of the elements to address the present crisis. These include: The Principle of Equality: The Principle of Non-Violence; The Principle of Consequentialism: The Principle of Responsibility: The Principle of Reciprocity: and The Principle of Restraint.
The relevance of these principles to the environmental problems cited above is clear, even on the briefest descriptions. First, the Jain religion is built on the bedrock of equality, which is not limited to socio-political considerations, but is a universal concept, including all selves: earth-bodied, water-bodied, vegetable organisms, insects,
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