Religion Practice and Science of Non Violence

Author(s): O P Jaggi
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt Ltd

Page 99

SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF NON-VIOLENCE
o ver the past few decades, efforts have been made to
understand the nature of aggression in man. This has been done through observations made on lower animals and through psychological and social studies in man. The application of the results obtained seems encouraging.
Animal Instincts in Human Behaviour
Why is a man violent? To get an answer to this question, we shall have to go into his antecedents; we will have to study animal behaviour.
Human beings are animals--though of a very special kind, and human behaviour is an outgrowth, or a uniquely specialised form of animal behaviour. Hence understanding animal behaviour is likely to help us to understand human behaviour better.
Co-operation and tolerance, aggression and violence are all observed in the animal kingdom. Co-operation is most obvious between mates, or parents and off-springs. Tolerance among different species of animals living side by side in a jungle is also a clearly observed phenomenon (except in the case of carnivores and their prey, which is a different matter altogether).
In the forest reserves, one can frequently see several species of animals, monkeys, hogs, buffaloes, deer, stags, elephants and rhinoceros near a water hole at the same time; eating the same food and drinking from the same limited water source, these different species of animals live beside each other without