Jain Spirit 1999 10 No 02

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 58

Reverence for all life
jiva that occupies and enlivens the host environment. When ideal death for a Jain, lay or monastic, is to fast to death, the body dies, the jiva seeks out a new site depending upon consciously making the transition to the next birth while not the proclivities of karma generated and accrued during the creating any harm to living beings. previous lifetime. In instances of virtuous action, an animal may improve its prospects for a higher life form. If the animal has Manifestations of this concern for nonviolence can be found in been vicious, then it will probably descend in the cosmic the institutions of the pinjrapole or animal hospital, founded order, either to a lower animal form or to the level of a micro- and maintained by the Jain community most prominently in organism (nigodha) or an elemental body dwelling in the earth western India. Geographer Deryck Lodrick described perhaps or in liquid form or in fire or in air.
the most famous pinjrapole as follows: "In the heart of Old
Delhi... opposite the Red Fort and close to the bustle of The taxonomy of Jainism places life forms in a gradated Chandni Chowk, is a pinjrapole dedicated entirely to the order starting with those beings that possess only touch, the welfare of birds. Founded in 1929 as an expression of the Jain foundational sense capacity that defines the presence of life. community's concern for ahimsa, the Jain Charity Hospital for These include earth, water, fire, air bodies; micro-organisms; Birds' sole function is to treat sick and injured birds brought there and plants. The next highest order introduces the sense of from all over the city ... The hospital, located inside the premises taste: worms, leeches, oysters and snails
of a Digambara Jain temple and supported entirely by occupy this phylum. Third-order life forms
public donations administered through the temadd the sense of smell, including
ple committee, receives some 30 to 35 most insects and spiders. Fourth
birds daily. Most of these are pigeons level beings, in addition to
with wounds or fractures incurred in being able to touch, taste
the city's heavy traffic, although and smell, can also see;
diseases ranging from blindness these include butterflies,
to cancer are treated by the flies, and bees. The fifth
hospital's resident veterinarilevel introduces hearing,
an. All birds, both wild and Birds, reptiles, mam
domestic, are accepted mals and humans
for treatment by the dwell in this life realm.
hospital with the excep
tion of predators, which Jain cosmology con
are refused on the sists of a storied
grounds that they harm universe in the
other creatures and shape of a female
thus violate the ahimsa figure. The earthly
principle. Incoming birds realm or middle
are treated in the dispenworld (manusya-loka)
sary on the second floor of consists of three conti
the hospital (the first connents and two oceans.
tains the staff quarters and The animals listed above,
grain store) and are placed including humans, can be
in one of the numerous cages found here. Additionally,
with which this level is lined. depending upon their actions,
As birds improve they are taken animals may be reborn in one of
to the third floor, where they eight heavens or seven hells. If ani
convalesce in a large enclosure having mals perform auspicious deeds they
access to the open sky ... When birds die in might be reborn in heaven.
the hospital, they are taken in procession to the
nearby Jumna and are ceremoniously placed in the In order to enhance one's spiritual advancement Samavasarana painting waters of that sacred river.' (Lodrick, 1981, 17). and avoid negative karmic consequences, the Courtesy: The Peaceful Jain religion advocates benevolent treatment of Liberators, Jain Art from India This Pinjrapole, in the centre of one of Delhi's busiest animals. The monks and nuns are not allowed
areas, boasts outstanding architecture and stands in even to lift their arms or point their fingers while wandering many ways as a national monument to the Jain commitment to from village to village, according to the Jina, 'This is the reason: non-violence. the deer, cattle, birds, snakes, animals living in water, on land, in the air might be disturbed or frightened' (Acaranga Sutra. The origins of the Jain pinjrapole are somewhat difficult to Jacobi, 145). In passage after passage, the Jaina teachers exhort trace. It could have developed in the early phases of Jainism their students, particularly monks and nuns, to avoid all harm (Asoka's inscriptions in the third century B.C.E. show similar to living creatures. The speech, walking, eating, and eliminato- concerns for animal welfare) or during the apex of Jainism, ry habits of the Jain monks and nuns all revolve around a per- which lasted from the fifth to the thirteen centuries. In the state vasive concern not to harm life in any form. Ultimately, the of Gujarat a succession of kings gave state patronage to
October - December 1999 • Jain Spirit 57
Jain Education Intemational 2010_03