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THE JAINA VIEW OF GOOD AND EVIL
NATHMAL TATIA
The problem of good and evil has exercised the mind of philosophers at all times. The difficulty arises when one endeavours to define absolute good and absolute evil. Good and evil, being relative, appear intermingled. What is good in one set of circumstances becomes evil in another and as such their nature remains elusive. Besides, there are thinkers, and the vast majority at that, who think every good mixed up with even greater evil. The Jaina philosopher is a protagonist of such thinking, and we propose here to give a succinct account of an import and facet of his theory of good and evil.
The Taina thinker finds good and evil connected with the purity and impurity of the soul. Absolute purity is absolute good which is achieved in final salvation in the supramundane disembodied state of existence. At the mundane stage, absolute good is impossible. Of course, the Jaina believes in embodied beings who are perfect, but such beings, according to him, are not absolutely free because their bodily organism is regarded as a hindrance to perfect freedom. A problem pertinent to this aspect of the Jaina theory is the issue of bondage. Our good and evil acts induce association with matter, and such association is called bondage. The good or evil nature of the bondage is determined by the corresponding nature of the act which produced it. If the act is good, the bondage is good; and if the act is evil, the bondage is evil. But what is good and what is evil ? Let us define them in terms of bondage,
The Jaina philosopher defines good (subha) and evil (aśubha) bondage as follows: whatever varies directly with the passions (kaşaya) is evil, and whatever varies inversely to the latter is good. This relation of variation is to be understood in the context of the intensity (anubhaga) and duration (sthiti) of the bondage. Ultimately the good is what we take to be good, and the bad is what we take to be bad, and the philosopher sets himself to define them only to give voice to the concepts peculiar to himself.
The Taina thinker links bondage to passions in the main, and good and evil bondage is conceived accordingly. Bondage of all
1. Read at the Seminar of scholars on April 24, 1964.
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