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Mahåvira : The Systematizer
197 There are five cardinal principles or Vows of the Jaina religion. The first is to renounce all injury to, and killing of, any living beings whatsoever, big or small movable or immovable. One should renounce all violence in thought, word and deed: nor cause others to do it; nor give consent to it. The second principle is to renounce all falsehood, all untruth, arising from anger, greed or fear. The other three refer to renunciation of possessions, sensual pleasures, and attachment. A Jaina monk must follow these five principles or vows completely, to their minutest detail. Lay people should observe these principles as best as their conditions allow; always endeavouring sincerely to improve their performance. The vows for the monks and the lay people are qualitatively identical. The difference is in their intensity of observance. These vows are therefore called Mahavrat in the case of monks and Anuvrat in the case of others. This basic unity, as regards the duties of monks, male and female, and laymen and lay women is a special feature of Jainism, and largely responsible for its strength and resilience. (It is called Chaturvidi Singha).
Basic to Ahimsa is a realization of the fundamental kinship of men to all living beings. Man is not their lord but a fellow being. Mahâvîra declared: "As is my pain when I am knocked or struck with a stick, bone, fist, clod, or potsherd or menaced, beaten, burned, tormented, or deprived of life; and as I feel every pain and agony from death down to the pulling out of a hair : in the same way, be sure of this, all kinds of living beings feel the same pain and agony, etc. as I, when they are ill-treated in the same way (struck, beaten, burned, killed). For this reason all sorts of living beings should not be beaten, nor treated with violence, nor abused not deprived of life.” (Sutrakritanga Book 2, Lecture 1).
The unity of all life so characteristic of Jainism is now one of the great concepts (and triumphs) of modern science, thanks to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and the recent advances in molecular biology and genetics. But in the Jewish and Christian religious tradition, re-inforced by Descartes, men stands apart from all other living beings. He alone possesses a soul. It is possible that the terrific, and unfortunate exploitation and pollution of the environment by western industrialized nations is partly the result of an ethic which concieves man (or rather Western man ?) as the
