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FOREWORD
In India there are innumerable religions and sects. All of them believe in non-violence. Non-violence can be interpreted in two ways - 1. Negatively, and 2. Positively. In the negative sense non-violence means not to commit violence and in the positive sense it means to undertake altruistic activities like mercy, charity, service, benevolence, etc. Almost all religions and the laity accept both these aspects – proscriptive in proscribing violence and prescriptive in prescribing the activities like mercy, charity, service, benevolence, etc - of non-violence as lawful religious pursuits. However, there are some sub-sects of Jainism that do not consider the positive-prescriptive aspect of nonviolence as religious. They consider them as meritorious activities and that these activities do not result in karmic separation, which is an essential feature of religious activities, but result in karmic bondages albeit of the auspicious types which fructify in pleasurable fruition, an essential feature of meritorious acts. They also emphasise that even these meritorious karmic bondages of the auspicious types result in continued worldly transmigration and hence defeat the very purpose of religious pursuits, which is nothing but seeking spiritual emancipation and resultant liberation by bringing the worldly transmigration to a halt. Such cessation of worldly transmigration is possible by complete karmic separation and as these meritorious activities of positive nonviolence do not result in karmic separation but in fresh karmic bondages, they are contraindicated as religious activities. In other words they consider them as irreligious activities. Therefore, these ought not to be
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