Jinamanjari 2001 09 No 24

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

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engaged in a religious activity who was forced to fight and kill would not lose any spiritual merit but instead attain deliverance (Paul Dundas: 140)." We find a similar sentiment in the act of Viṣṇukumāra that occurs in the Neminatha-purāṇa. Therefore, "violence as such is ethically bad, but in true life one has to consider the whole situation before deciding whether the use of violence is justified as a mixed good. The whole situation may not be dominated by one, single ethical principle (Sekhar Vincent: 172)." Analogous with this, a soldier killing his enemies on the battlefield will not make him a criminal, but, if the same warrior murders or harms somebody whom he does not like, this act warrants punishment as it amounts to violence. Participating in war - an act which many would say causes wholesale himsā is the most debatable part of the controversy the ahimsa and himsā doctrine. Mahāmēghavahana Khāravēla (c. 2nd century B.C.E.), possibly the greatest of the Kalinga kings -- who happened to be a practicing Jaina -- presented a possible synthesis solution to this conflict between the path of the warrior and the path of the ascetic.
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Although he reiterated that a kṣatiyas should abide by the conduct of kṣātradharma, and allowed for the performance of yāgas (religious sacrifice), he modified the 'code' by stressing that warriors could wage war only in order to defend their people. In this sense, loyalty to the land and loyalty to the Jaina religion need not contradict each other. The reality was, kṣatriyas waged war, merchants traded goods, peasants cultivated food, it was their duty and obligation. Jaina canon had to be interpreted to allow for this reality (which was not overlooked by the 'sixty-three men of eminence,' most of whom were kştriyas).
But the genius of this Jaina interpretation rests not in making a marginal accommodation to allow each social group to follow their profession, but in meticulously protecting the basic tenets of ahimsa intact the nucleus of nonviolence was maintained. For the ksatriyas there was room for their profession, but no room for its glorification. For them the real battlefield was the human body itself, the veritable war was against the Self. True victory was against ego. As Lawrence Babb states:
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