Jainism

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

Page 95

JAINISM
85
It may be added here that, according to the Jain view, a king may fight in self-defence, as will be seen later on, under the arst row.
If we analyse the state of mind of a person who is hunting for sport, we find three factors, (i) an absense of thought of the pain and harm he is indicting on the innocent creatures; (2) he is entirely taken up with his own pleasure; (3) he has no feeling for the pain and suffering of the animais. Thus we find thoughtlessness, selfishness, and heartlessness.
Vivisection is done to gain certain plıysiological knowledge. We have no right to gain knowledige at the expense of other living beings, and, further, our lack of knowledge is due to some unnatural activity in us (karma), and if we remove it, we shall have the knowledge, without injuring the living beings, and injuring these in vivisection is not the way to remove the knowledge-obscuring "karma.” In the Jain idea of morality, relations with all living beings are considered, and not merely relationships with man.
Now, from the point of view of the protection a layman can afford to life, living beings can be divided into
1. Those that can move from place to piace. 2. Stationary living beings, such as trees, vegetables,
etc. The layman cannot take a vow to refrain from killing the latter. And to compare the protection to life afforded by a layman with that afforded by a monk, we may represent full protection by the number 16, so in this first
division the layman's protection covers, roughly speaking,