Lessons of Ahimsa and Anekanta for Contemporary Life

Author(s): Tara Sethia
Publisher: California State Polytechnic University Pomona

Page 120

Christopher Chapple, “Religious Dissonance and Reconciliation”
This verse echoes a recurrent theme found in Jaina texts. He then takes on a theme akin to the bodhisattva ideal of Mahāyāna Buddhism:
Even in regard to those with excessive sin who have been cast down by their own actions, one should have compassion for those beings,
according to the logic of this highest dharma (YDS 152). The task of the philosopher of nonviolence and of the Jaina is to extend compassion toward other living beings. Reconsidering the Stories of Violence
In the light of the above passages from YDS, the stories about Haribhadra's violent acts against Buddhists seem implausible in several regards. First, stories surfaced five hundred years following his death. Second, by the time these particular Haribhadra stories reached currency, Buddhism was on the wane, if not already largely demolished by the sacking of Buddhist monasteries and libraries by Islamic invaders. Third, the violent actions attributed to Haribhadra seem quite inconsistent with the professed Jain nonviolent values he adopted and professed. His critiques of Hindu sacrificial violence are well known, found in several of his texts, both in Sanskrit and Prakrit. But the Buddhist tradition shares this disdain for violence in the name of religion and Buddhists make unlikely candidates for Haribhadra's challenge and assault."
Hence, if we look at the stories in terms of their historical sitz-im-leben, another story might be told. The religious challenge in northern India in the 13th century came not from the Buddhists but from the Muslims. The Jains faced the difficult prospect of becoming an oppressed minority and needed to develop new strategies for being the “other” in a new context. In the Hindu-dominated world, their food observances gave them
" Phyllis Granoff suggests that the reason that Haribhadra so wanted to distinguish Jainism from Buddhism lay in the fact that as Jainas sought patronage from Hindu kings, it might have been beneficial to clearly separate their own tradition from that of Buddhism, which had waned and become unpopular by the eleventh centuries. See the article by Granoff cited above, p. 123.
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