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Jainism: The Cosmic Vision First is the love for the mother and next comes the love for brothers and sisters. It then develops into the care for the interests of others and it expands into compassion for all sentients.
Forgiveness is the measure of the fruitfulness of all rituals. Forgiveness is an indication of how far religious rites have been realized. Forgiveness is the barometer of the true religious spirit. In the absence of Forgiveness, vows, prayers, penances, meditations and religious rites do not give fruits. Forgiveness, which is a soul's virtue, is distorted by anger and passions (Kashayas). Water is cool by nature. In the proximity of fire it becomes hot, but heat is now water's property, it is a foreign element. As soon as the fire is removed, water regains its natural coolness. For bringing coolness to water no other aid is needed, because coolness is its natural property. Similarly, forgiveness is the soul's natural charateristic. No external instrument is needed for it. But as water becomes hot, so forgiveness, the natural characteristic of the soul, is distorted by the rise of anger and other passions, but that distortion is not natural. In the absence of its contact with fire, heat is reduced. Similarly, in the absence of anger and other passions, the distortion is tranquillized. When the soul is in its own nature, it is happy because it gains happiness in and by its own nature. When it flinches from its own nature and is mixed with foreign elements, it becomes unhappy. Thus, anger is not soul's nature, but a foreign element produced by contact with outer circum-stances and that is why it is harmful to the soul. There is nothing so harmful as anger and there is nothing so helpful as forgiveness. Anger brings a fall not only in this birth, but also in the next birth. It is said about forgiveness: "The best
Kshamapana forgiveness is the essence of the three worlds, it takes us across the samsara or transmigration, it gets us the three gems and it prevents our downfall."
Such extraordinary forgiveness is best illustrated by Mahavira's life. He experienced a number of calamities (upasargas) in life. But God bore them all with patience. When Indra, the greatest of gods, praised Bhagwan Mahavira's greatness, a god named Sangam became conscious of divine egotism. He made up his mind to put Mahavira on trial. At that time, Mahavira was engrossed in meditation in Paulash temple outside the village Pedhal in the region named Dridhabhumi. His meditation was extraordinary. He was practising penance with his eyes fixed on a dry substance, without any movement of his eyelids. The god Sangam stepped forth. The earth and the sky thundered. He thought to himself, "Indra made a mountain from a mole-hill, I will make a mole-hill from the mountain." Sangam came to Mahavira and tried his tricks, one after another. He wanted to prove that man is helpless in front of God's wonderful exploits.
Now it was a dark and dangerous night. Ghosts were screaming and evil spirits were running about impatiently for food. But these terrible noises had no effect on Mahavira. He was meditating open-eyed.
A storm arose and poured a basketful of dust into his eyes. But Mahavira and his eyes had no relation to each other, because the soul and the body are different. Ants were acutely stinging like piercing needles and gnats came with poisonous stings. Then came large red ants capable of carving a human body into the shape of a sieve. The pain was so terrible that
