What is Jainism

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Champat Rai Jain

Page 47

JAINISM WILL STOP WARS
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facts, twist the significance of words and phrases of solemn pacts and to trample on treaties and engagements. If you have no respect for all life, you will never have respect for any of its forms, except when it suits you otherwise or when it is better for you to behave respectfully towards any individual or community or communities of men. Look, all the disturbance in the jungle arises from the presence of animals that prey on and devour the flesh of their fellow-beings. There is no disturbance where herbivorous animals live. The deer, the cow, the pigeon, the dove, injure no one; it is the wolf, the leopard, the hawk, the vulture that are constantly engaged in killing and causing disturbance. The principle holds good throughout.
The question is: how is the necessary change in the human heart to be effected? The Bible taught all right enough: love thine neighbour as thyself. But it failed to make any impression on the worldlyminded! Two causes account for failure in this respect, and these are especially strong in modern times. Firstly, the Bible is believed by Christendom today to teach only respect for the human life. The doctrine of love is not to be extended to all forms of life, the animals being deemed to have been especially created for being devoured by men! With such a belief you require an extraordinary logical acumen to perceive the special sanctity of human life, when all its other forms are devoid of it. No wonder that the average man is not impressed with such a special sanctity for the human life. The other reason why the Biblical doctrine of loving the neighbour impresses us not today is to be found in the fact that the modern mind has acquired what I might term a highly commendable spirit of freedom of thought, and is not likely to be swayed by mere ipse dixit and doctrines that do not explain themselves. He will not, therefore, turn the other cheek, or give his cloak also when only his coat it is that is claimed at law. As for the unintelligibility of these doctrines the Bible itself explains:
If I have spoken to you of earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I speak to you of heavenly things ?'
And it is distinctly added: 'I have other things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them yet.' The student of the Bible is or