Positive Non Violence

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

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future birth." It goes to prove the importance of service. Service is nothing but the modern form of vaiyāvrtya. The intention and practice of service is beneficial to both – to the one who serves and to one who is being served. Thus, various forms of positive non-violence are clearly visible in the Jaina canonical lore.
It is a matter of great worry that while explaining non-violence today, its negative aspect is being emphasised at the expense of its positive aspect by saying that the positive aspect is flawed. It is being depicted as something to be abandoned for reasons of being flawed sometimes by attachment, some times by being imbued with violence, and some other times by karmic bondage. Shri Lodha has written this book with a view to dispel such doubts on the basis of canonical and scriptural beliefs and to establish the positive aspects of non-violence as fully acceptable as dharma.
Some of the Jaina sects that ignore the positive forms of nonviolence such as compassion, kindness, friendship, etc., emphasise giving up of violence to such dogmatic depths that they depict all activity as a means of violence and forbid it altogether. Not only this, they depict beneficial activities such as saving of other creatures' lives, charity, service, etc., also as means of karmic bondage and say that they are fit to be abandoned also. The Śvetāmbara Terāpanthi sect of Jainism has changed their tack and at least made the activity of charity as acceptable under the euphemism of ‘visarjan', but the followers of Kanji Svami are engaged in tarnishing the very concept of noble precept of kindness and compassion based non-violence, preached by Bhagvān Mahāvīra by spreading the deceptive net of absolute and practical standpoints. They have taken a strong hold on its negative aspect only and consider themselves as great scholars and explicators by taking recourse to misleading logic. They consider the Lord's words contained in canonical works like Ācārānga, Sūtrakṛtānga, Praśná Vyākaraṇa, Daśavaikālika, Uttarādhyayana, etc., as untouchable. They consider the sensitivity towards other creatures' consciousness as abandonable as sin. They say that to save other creatures is flawed as attachment
Editor's Note
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