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Contribution of Ācārya Mahāprajña to the..... : 81
then it will lead to establishment of bad fate. So control over mind, body and speech is the way to bright future. The Jaina Ethical code of conduct and Society
Ācārya Mahāprajña divides ācāra or conduct under the two broad categories, one is ātmābhimukhi i.e. the conduct which leads towards the self-upliftment and other one is samājābhimukhii.e. the conduct which leads to social upliftment. Self oriented conduct (ātmābhimukhi) is called spiritual conduct and society-oriented conduct is called as morality.20 He established that the Jaina code of conduct, namely five mahāvratas and five aņuvratas are basically for peaceful social-existence. Basically there is misconception among the non-Jaina scholars that the Jaina Ethical philosophy gives much emphasis to individual progress only and there is no room for the social development in Jaina Ethics. It is crystal clear that the vow of non-violence means not to kill others, the vow of truthfulness means not to tell a lie in any case, the vow of non-stealing means not to steal anything without the consent of the owner and the vow of celibacy means to be content with one's own wife or completely giving up one's sexual pleasures which is the main cause of all cruel and violent actions. The vow of non-possession means to give up all sorts of possession or limiting one's possession to the possible extent. All these vows are related with the society. So Anuvrata and Mahāvrata both are samājābhimukhi as they give moral injections for social peace.21 Ācārya Mahāprajña emphasized on this concept that the basic foundation of aņuvratas and mahāvratas are, the three guptis i.e. control of mind, speech and body which is purely ātmābhimukh1.22 It has nothing to do with the social upliftment. This kind of clear, impartial distinction can give raise to the concept of Jaina sociology in the world of Jaina philosophy. Criteria of Morality
There is no single criteria of morality as it changes from place to place; it changes according to different environmental situations. Eastern and Western Ethical philosophers have different views regarding the criteria of morality. Ācārya Mahāprajña founded the criterias of Jaina morality. As per his view, the main criterias of
