Book Title: Perspectives in Jaina Philosophy and Culture
Author(s): Satish Jain, Kamalchand Sogani
Publisher: Ahimsa International

View full book text
Previous | Next

Page 71
________________ All kinds of movement affect these Jivas in some way In fact, nature itself is doing a lot of violence in the movement of inorganic elements like wind, water and fire in the biological realm, lifc fecds on life, the stronger, on the weak Man also commits a lot of violence for food as well as fun The Jaina doctrine of non-violence takes into consideration only those acts of injury which are duc to human volition Semitic Attitude towards Non-Violence. The semitic religions believe that the world was created by God and man is the crown of creation The plants and animals have no souls and were created by God for food and the service of mankind Moses gave a list of "clean animals" to be used as food for man Jesus did not reject this doctrine and never preached vegetarianism The Koran also explicitly declares that Allah created oceans and big rivers so that man could get fresh meat As such, in semitic religions, the concept of non-violence had a limited application, viz , to the relations among human beings and there also to those belonging to one's own sector society Moses taught "Love your neighbour as your self", "but here the term 'neighbour included only those human beings who lived according to his other commands For those who violated his commands, there was no love or forgiveness For them, he laid down the Retributive Theory of Punishment Universal brotherhood in Islam practically meant the brotherhood of Muslims only The teaching of Jesus was however more humanistic and compassionate than that of Moses and Mohammed as he went further when he taught "It hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thinc enemy But I say unto you 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hurt you Resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also "The Jaina sages went farther still and commanded "Love all life", and not merely coreligionists, not merely human life, but also animal and vegetable life Hinda Attitude towards Non-Violence In India, although Hinduism preached non-violence, it has not been such a central concept as it has been in Jainism and Buddhism Animals were killed for food as well as sacrifices Manu and others commend animal-killing at sacrifices Jainism and early Buddhism severely denounced animal-killing for food as well as sacrifices The result of these protests was that Hinduism also began to glorify the the doctrine of non-violence But because of its different background, Hinduism did not preach the doctrine with missionary zeal The Hindu thinkers went on preaching non-violence but did nothing to stop animal-killing for food and also sacrifices Very few Hindu thinkers condemned it in unequivocal terms The Doctrine of Universal Love and Good Will By the time of Mahavira and Buddha in India, non-violence came to be preached as the supreme virtue, but practical application of the doctrine brought 29

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269