Jainism

Author(s): Herbert Warren
Publisher: Divine Knowledge Society

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JAINISM
The next three vows (gunavrata) are of a kind which helps or supports the first five. And the last four vows are disciplinary (siksavrata); the practise of them forms a sort of preparation for the monk life.
FIRST VOW
(STHULA-PRANATIPATA-VIRAMANA VRATA) Is a vow to refrain from killing or destroying life but not in a literal or strict sense.
We need to know what killing is,-seeing that the soul cannot be destroyed; and we need to know what particular kinds or forms of killing shall be refrained from.
WHAT KILLING IS?
It is separating the life forces through negligent activities.
Negligent activities are those which take place when we are in a state in which we cannot use care and caution. The term “negligent" is used here in a technical sense. When a person is in any of the following five states, he does not exercise care and caution, and his activities, when in these states, are here called negligeni. Pride, through which a person kills; it implies arroganco, and is a state in which the person ignores the rights of others. The second is any sense-pleasure, which leads to killing (vishaya). The third would be intense passion, in which state the reason is lost or put aside, as in wrath and anger; also intense greed, also deceit. The fourth is sleep; we cannot exercise care and caution when asleep. And the fifth kind of negligent activity, through
which we may separate the life forces of a living being,