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ŚRUTA-SARITĀ
question will not be solved but will become knotty if and when we try to understand the aforesaid opinion of Sanghadāsa divested of its context.
The long and short of it all is this that the Tīrthankaras are the initial source of the Jaina ethics. They are in a position to distinguish right from wrong through their uncommon intuitive powers and lay down prescriptions and prohibitions important for the spiritual aspirants. But the Jainas have not accepted that the Tirthankaras do this in the manner of Buddha and also they do not believe that all the prescriptive and prohibitory rules are found incorporated in the teachings of the Tirthankaras like the Vaidikas in the Vedas. But at the same time it has also been equally well accepted that the ethical and moral rules have also been framed and formulated on the basis of moral conduct and behaviour as well as preaching of teachers other than Tīrthankaras, avoiding conflict and contradiction with the original objectives of realization, with reference to contemporary times and places, and that they all form collectively the main spring of the general moral code of the Jainas.
The Fundamentals of Jain Ethics : knowledge and Action
Dry and ignorant performance of religious activities do not deserve to be called ethics from the Jaina point of view. The essential requisite of good, ideal conduct is right knowledge. It is necessary that the vision or faith must be first, clear. The knowledge can be correct or right if it follows from clear vision. Every one has the knowledge of an object but from the spiritual standpoint it can be called true only when it flows from the correct assessment of a thing attempted from the extra-mundane, and not the mundane angle. The object of getting emancipation should invariably decide whether a particular action is permitted or prohibited. The knowledge without discrimination is not the right type of knowledge and a conduct is not the right type of conduct if it is not based on the right type of knowledge. Keeping this in mind it has been said that the conduct without right knowledge is like a load of sandalwood sticks placed on the back of a donkey.5
But, on the other side, it has been said regarding the meaning of knowledge and its area or dimension that it is not necessary for the ideal conduct to have the knowledge of elements of all the things. But as much knowledge is required as is essential to ensure right conduct. Knowledge which helps us in discriminating between the soul and the non-soul, is a minimum requirement. But that discrimination is not of the type of realization. But that much discrimination is required as can intensify the craving for self-realization instead of that for the world (Saṁsāra).
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