Panoramic View Of Jainism

Author(s): Ratankumar Jain
Publisher: Ratankumar Jain

Page 17

4.5 TRUTH AND NONVIOLENCE Jain ethical code is based on two main concepts: Nonviolence (ahimsa) and truth (satya). These are important not only for individual uplift but also for social welfare and prosperity. All the twenty-four Tirthankars preached nonviolence and truth for spiritual advancement as against sacrificial rituals. Nonviolence is based on sanctity of life and love for all living beings. Truth purifies the mind. Speaking pleasant and wholesome truth is nobler than silence. In modern times, Mahatma Gandhi has demonstrated the value of these ideals. "I am being led to my religion", he says "through truth and nonviolence, i.e., love in the broadest sense.... Denial of God we have known. Denial of truth we have not known. The most ignorant among mankind have some truth in them. We are all sparks of truth. The sum total of these sparks is indescribable, as-yet-unknown-truth which is God. I am being daily led nearer to it by constant prayer." ...He further says, "To be sure to such religion, one has to lose oneself in continuous and continuing service of all life. Realization of truth is impossible without a complete merging of oneself in, and in identification with, this limitless ocean of life. Hence, for me, there is no escape from social service, there is no happiness on earth beyond or apart from it. Social service here must be taken to include every department of life. In this scheme, there is nothing low, nothing high, all is one, though we seem to be many." (10) 4.6 JAINISM AS APPLIED INTELLIGENCE Jainism is neither the satisfaction of intellectual curiosity (nishchaya) nor the practical pragmatism (vyavhara) alone. It is a combination of both. Both are essential for an integrated growth of man. Intellect is significant as a means to better practical moral adjustment. However, truth cannot be attained by reason alone without practical moral discipline of the passions and prejudices which warp human judgement. In short, Jainism is applied intelligence rather than pure science. It is a training in modesty rather than twisting the facts for a supposed explanation. Jainism influences life with deepest insight, widest farsight, synthetic disinterestedness (vitaraga) and penetrating comprehensiveness in man's journey towards salvation--the state of soul having infinite perception, infinite knowledge, infinite bliss and infinite strength. By developing insight, man acquires the quality of distinguishing between the real and the unreal, and of grasping of the ultimate nature of things. By developing farsight, man acquires the quality of distinguishing the eternal values from transitory ones and lives his own life for accomplishing the eternal values. The quality of disinterestedness relieves a person from one-sided dependence. A comprehensive view helps man penetrate beneath the superficial and limited sphere, and leads him to the nature of reality. It is primarily because of these features that Jainism has maintained its identity and has remained less hostile and more accommodative to fellow religious communities than some other heterodox systems. 9. Philosophy of Dependent Emergence in Contemporary Indian Philosophy, edited by S. Radhakrishnan and J. H. Muirhead. p. 285. George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, 1958. 10. Contemporary Indian Philosophy, op. cit. p. 21.