Positive Non Violence

Author(s): Kanhaiyalal Lodha, Dalpatsingh Baya
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 23

The opposite or negative counterpart of violence is non-violence. This is a negative definition of non-violence. However, merely giving up of violence is not non-violence. The negative non-violence does not touch all aspects of life. It cannot be termed as a spiritual achievement. Negative non-violence is merely the giving up of external or physical violence; it can be the body of non-violence but not its spirit. Not to kill anyone is merely limited to gross and external view of non-violence. In the literal sense, the central tenet of Jainism, non-violence as negation of violence, may be negative but its feeling is not negative. Its feeling has always been positive and prescriptive. One of the proofs that nonviolence is positive is that Jainism has used the word 'anukampā (compassion)' as a synonym for non-violence. In the Jaina parlance *anukampā' is an important word. It is basically made up of the prefix *anu' and the root word ‘kampā (meaning kampan or vibration)'. Abhidhān Rājendra Kośa explains anukampā as 'anurūpa kampate cestate iti anukampā', which means 'what vibrates sympathetically is compassion'. Actually, compassion is the feeling of pain in others' suffering; it is to feel the others' pain and suffering equally. Again, further clarifying the concept of compassion, it has been said that it is the detached desire to mitigate others' pain and suffering. Thus, if the concept of compassion is an inseparable part of non-violence, to consider it as negative only, is misleading. In compassion, others's pain is not only felt as own pain, but a natural and selfless effort is also made to mitigate it. When others' pain and misery become our own pain and misery, it is not possible that an effort may not be made to mitigate it. Actually, as long as compassion does not become a part of one's life, the gaining of right-vision is also impossible. Others' pain and misery can become our own only when we feel it as our own. It is only this feeling that is the source from which the right vision springs and a spring of positive non-violence that is the sacred river of service to mitigate others' pain flows. The sacred stream of non-violence has always flowed from the positive feelings of kindness and friendship, which are rooted in the feeling of universal oneness. When we consider the discreet view of 'ātmavat sarvabhūteșu (all living beings are like
Positive Non-Violence