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The Final Commitment
337
A - Ahimsa: Abstention from all harmful activity
In order to grasp the importance of this concept in Jaina doctrine a concept that is not one of abstract speculation, but is deeply involved in real-life situations, penetrating all spheres of human and social existence - we must return to the origins, to the dawn of an era when the continent was covered with jungle and when men, animals and plants lived in constant contact with each other.
The awareness at one and the same time of cosmic vitality and of the fact that to strike beings, harm them, destroy them, is the gravest possible offence and thus that the dharma consists above all in respecting all living beings and harming none of them, is very clear in the ancient texts. Acārāriga-sūtra I an Sūtrakrtânga-sūtra I, which are addressed to the ascetics, revert often and insistently to āramba, a synonym for himsā,l0 which, together with parigraha, possessive attachment, are the two major sins, closely linked to one another and to the passions.11 The injunction against all forms of violence, a rule to which no exception is to be made, is set forth clearly and in detail and is made the subject of commentary:
...One must neither kill, nor rule over, nor subject to oneself, nor
cause to suffer, nor attack violently any sort of living being. 12 Mahāvira had observed and examined closely the earth, water, fire, wind, plants and moving creatures; through his own acute perceptions he had grasped that they are all living and he took pains not to harm them. 13 Among rules of conduct he assigned first place to ahissa.14
10 Cf. e.g. AS I, 1, 2-7; 2, 1, 3; 3, 4, 1; 4; SkrS I, 1, 1-6; 7,5-9; 9, 2-9; 11, 912; Dixit, 1978, p. 5: "Aramba and Parigraha: the worst sins"; "The sixfold objects of Aramba" p. 6 and pp. 14-15; cf. also DS VI, 26-45; VIII, 2-18; X, 1-4.
11 Cf. e.g. ASI, 2, 6, 1-2; SkrS I, 9, 10-11.
12 ...savve pāņā savve bhūtā savve jivā savve sattā na hamtavvā, ņa
ajjāveyavvă, na parighetavvā, ņa paritāveyavvā, ņa uddaveyavvā. AS I, 4, 1,1, to quote just one ex, setting forth this idea.
13 Ibid., 1, 8, 1, 11-12
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