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THE ETHICAL CODE
161
that hirsā is injury or violence caused to the living organism due to carelessness and negligence, and actuated by passions like pride, prejudice, attachment and hatred. It is clear, the physical act was not considered in isolation from the mental attitude. The importance of manas is emphasized in another Jaina classic thus : “Negligence brings sin; and the soul is defiled even though there may not be any actual injury to life. On the contrary, a careful and a pious person who is not disturbed by passions and who is kind towards animals will not suffer the sin of violence, even if, by accident, injury is caused to life.”
Co-ordination between the mind and body is thus considered necessary for the practice of non-violence. This should be accompanied also by proper speech emanating from the heart which knows nothing but love. The result is that there is absolutely no thought of injury and no speech of it either-indicating that there is no instigation of somebody else to commit violence. Hence the principle of ahimsā naturally implies purity of thought, word and deed and is a result of universal love and sympathy towards all living beings, however low they may be in the scale of evolution. Eliot exhibits a clear understanding of the Jaina view of non-violence when he writes : “... the beautiful precept of ahiṁsā or not injuring living things is not, as Europeans imagine, founded on the fear of eating one's grandparents but rather on the humane and enlightening feeling that all life is one and that men who devour beasts are not much above the level of the beasts who devour one another."'7
In the observance of the principle of non-violence the householder is given some concession, allowed some laxity; the ascetic, however, is expected to follow the principle to its minutest detail. For example, in regard to the killing of the one-sensed living organisms found in the vegetables, the ascetic is allowed no concession. The house-holder is allowed to kill the one-sensed organism, since, in the absence of it, agriculture as an avocation will suffer and consequently society will be deprived of a basic necessity of life, viz., food. The house-holder is therefore expected to observe this principle only in regard to the two-sensed, three-sensed, four-sensed
5 Tattvärtha-Sūtra, VII. 8 6 Pravacanasāra, III. 17 7 op. cit., Vol. I, p. 1vi
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