Studies in Jainism

Author(s): Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta
Publisher: Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture Culcutta

Page 112

REFLECTIONS ON AŅUVRATA
103 THE AŅUVRATA MOVEMENT : In the wake of changed outlook and necessitated by it, one Jaina Muni, rather Rşi, has formulated a moderated doctrine of behaviour, the Doctrine of Small Vows- Anuvrata. He is Ācārya Śri Tulsi, a great thinker of modern times, though not that widely known as yet.
Behaviourism has become the key concept of all social sciences - Political Science, Economics, Sociology and Ethics. Following the Americans in particular, the entire advanced world is now engrossed in the analysis of human behaviour scientifically. But a well-knit, co-ordinated philosophy of behaviourism has not yet been on the scene - the philosophy of behaviourism has not yet taken proper shape. The Aņuvrata Movement pioneered by the aforesaid Jaina Acārya is a significant attempt at this.
THE CODE : Aņuvrata has been defined by its inaugurators as a code of conduct for building a healthy society. Alternatively, the description has been condensed in a single word : Aņuśāstra, implying a summary code (of behaviour).
Indeed, the code in a summary of social ethic, and since from the broader perspective society is composed of individual cells, is the ethic for individual, too.
The traffic is rather a two-way one, social behaviour moderating the individual, and the individual securing social development. The distinction advanced by John Stuart Mill between self-regarding and other-regarding activities vanishes under Aņuvrata philosophy. For any individual activity cannot but touch the social fabric, and any groupaction is found to mould the individual - his behaviour rather. The obverse and reverse of the same coin can hardly be distinguished from each other in Aruvrata philosophy. Indeed, life itself is an integrated whole. How can one aspect of it be separated from another? The Jaina view of life negates the idea of compartmentalism altogether.