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76 Śramaṇa, Vol 66, No. 3, July-September 2015
either due to heredity or other hidden causes, public disgrace or dishonour of one's self or the family, an unexpected shock due to failure to realize an ambition and many other unusual factors may be regarded, either individually or cumulatively, are causes driving an individual to commit suicide.
Practice of Santhārā is based on the Double-effect theory. The death is exactly an incidental product that accompanies the spiritual purity through the elimination of karmas exactly as chaff is an incidental growth accompanying the corn which is the essential product of the seed. But suicide is not based on such theory but it is a sort of pessimistic thought process leading towards the painful death. This dreadful act of human being is condemned by each and every religions and not only by Jains.
In Ïśāvāsyopaniṣad, it is clearly written that one who commits suicide goes to the dreadful infernal realm.32 It is said that the person who commits suicide out of anger, fear, pride, klesa have to take the next birth in infernal realm for 60,000 years and have to repent for the misdeed committed by oneself." Even in the Jaina canonical literature of Uttaradhyayanasūtra, it is said that the person who commits suicide spoils this life and the next life where as Santhārā is nothing but a way of facing death artistically, it is considered that if a monk leaves his body in Samadhimarana, he surely attains the heaven.
It is said in Samana Suttaṁ text that a wise person who is free from anxiety dies a peaceful death once; by such a death, he immediately puts an end to an infinite number of deaths.34 Suicide is the cause of worldly wanderings whereas Samādhimaraṇa is the cause of eliminating karmas, and thereby limiting the circle of life and death.
Justice T. K. Tukol says, in his book, 'Santhārā is not Suicide' that Jaina philosophy is a philosophy of non-violence. In the case of suicide, a death with passion is nothing but violence whereas Jaina Santhārā is observed thoughtfully in an impassionate state without craving for materialistic pleasures and takes the oath of abstaining from food, water entirely willingly and even resolves not to harm
