Outlines of Jainism

Author(s): J L Jaini, F W Thomas
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

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OUTLINES OF JAINISM
necessaries, to worship daily, and to give charity in the way of knowledge, medicine, comfort, and food. And these virtues are summed up in one word: ahimsū (not-hurting). “Hurt no one" is not a merely negative precept. It embraces active service also ; for, if you can help another and do not-your neighbour and brother
-surely you hurt him, although on the analogy of the legal damnum sine injuriu it may be said to be a non-moral omission, for which you may not be condemned.
Ritual Jaina ritual is, like all priestly matters, very elaborate and complicated; but its principle is in conformity with the simplicity of the whole creed. Its practical aspects are two: the devotional and the ecstatic. The devotional is like the devotion of wife to husband, or of child to father. The devotee feels near to, and in the presence of, the great, rich, brilliant, burning ideal which has presented itself to him as an ever-inspiring, ever-vivifying infinity of purity and joy. In the ecstatic it is the husband or father conscious of his power, of his reception of the devotion of wife or child. The soul in ecstasy feels itself to be the light. The Jaina ritual also circles round the one central Jaina ideal—the perfect soul—which is at once the goal, glory, duty, and destiny of the best of humanity.
PART II. SECULAR KNOWLEDGE Jaina literature, even in its ruins, is very rich and varied. Professor Dr. A. Guérinot, of Paris, remarks