Jaina Political Thought

Author(s): G C Pandey
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

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like Ekaki Rastrakuta?.'Inbetween are rulers, like Srenika and Kunika who have pomp and glory, power and wealth. Nami is a royal sage who abandons the business of politics. Srenika does not go so far but listens to the wisdom of sages and hopes to be good. The canon does not preserve any purely political advice which might have been rendered to such rulers. Its emphasis is rather on moral advice. The rulers must not forg are as much subject to the moral law as any ordinary man. Whether a king or a candala, all are alike before the law of Karman all equally capable of being good and acquiring spiritual wisdom.
Jaina canonical thought may be described as much a moral preamble to the practice of religion as to that of politics. Authority and governance, law and justice, obedience and conquest, freedom and discipline, equality and happiness, all these terms have an inherent duality. They apply to man's inner life as well as to his external behaviour. Their application to man's inner life reveals their essential meaning and provides a model for outer life. It is in terms of the ethico-spiritual life that man comes to understand the meaning of socio-political norms just as in socio-political life one learns to practicse ethico-spiritual principles. "Je ajjhattam jānai, se bahia janai/ Je bahia janai, se ajjhattar janai.”
Authority, thus, belongs in the first place to an agency using force, which can only create fear. “Saddha dutiya purisassa hoti, pannacenam pasasati." It follows that the authority which rulers claim can only be derivative. They can have authority only by serving what has real authority. Law similarly is the constraint of truth or essential nature. Justice is equality, the sense of spiritual similarity, "Samiyāye dhamme ariyehim pavedite” 22 Obedience is owed by the will to reason. It is the passions which rebel and need to be conquered. Freedom is attained by the will when it follows reason without hinderance by the passions. Happiness lies in the equanimity born of discipline and wantlessness.
These principles have well-understood parallels in outer life. The king should follow the right faith and do his duty without regarding himself as a morally privileged person. The people should follow the example of the king. The laws of the state and society should not be contrary to the principles of spiritual wisdom which decree non-violence, equality a wantlessness. Men should not lose themselves in worldly pursuits, i.e. social policy should not be maximist. Business should be conducted honestly and politics truthfully. War should be avoided. In short, if one seeks to be a good person, all activities will tend to be good. If one disregards the seeking to be
.but merely wants to do good and be successful. all activities will turn towards evil. If the political life of man ceases to function as a support for his spiritual life, it can only promote evil.
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