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JAINISM : A WAY OF LIFE
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for the masses also. This war-torn world, governed by men of ambition and greed, will be saved in spite of itself by men of peace who carry in their hearts the instruction of the sages.
Ahimsā Paramo Dharmaḥ
Non-Violence is the Highest Religion. The central teaching of Jainism may be quoted in the words of Puruşārtha Siddhyupāya: "Ahiṁsā is the non-appearance of attachment and other passions. Their appearance is Hiṁsā-violence."
This is called "the summary of the Jaina scripture."
In our personal life, as in collective life everywhere, violence, open or disguised, is at work. War will never be banished and Peace will never be ushered in while violence courses in men's brains. Jainism makes a unique contribution not in proclaiming a Religion with Non-Violence as its centre, but in fully elaborating the technique of becoming non-violent. This is what the world needs today. There is a genuine appreciation of Gandhiji's Satyāgraha; but to understand and live it, some wise practical instruction is necessary. Similarly the creed of Ahimsā held up by Jainism is known to the world at large. But the world needs men and women who have practised Ahimsa, who live by it daily in all the affairs of life. Jainism has precepts which the world will more readily and enthusiastically accept when these are demonstrated by a few men and women who live the precepts without becoming monks or nuns.
The world of today does not need orders of monks and nuns; people are not willing to abandon the ties of home for those of heaven; they want to rise in their minds and hearts heavenward and live in the world to permeate it with the immortal influence. Therefore it is necessary for Jaina men and women to transform their homes into Havalis where the Fower and the Learning and the Compassion of Mahāvīra and His illustrious predecessors can shine.
Next to the central doctrine of Ahiṁsā Jainism facilitates a life of self-exertion because it rejects logically the pernicious belief in an anthropomorphic personal God. Believers in an extra-cosmic personal God naturally fall into the sin of dependance on such a God, pray to Him, to to propitiate Him and seek favours from Him, thus debasing their moral propensities and their willpower. No blind believer in a personal God can say as the Ratna-Karanda-Śrävakācāra asserts :-"A dog becomes a Deva by virtue. A Deva becomes a dog by vice. From Dharma a living
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