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Jainism and Modern Life
C. C. Shah
Jainsm is essentially an ethical religion. Like all prophets, and unlike philosophers, Mahavira was more concerned with the problems of life than with metaphysical speculations. Even while reflecting upon life, he appears to be more concerned with how to find escape from pain and misery rather than how to seek positive happiness or pleasure. Unlike Buddha, he did not need direct contact with old age, disease and death to realize the futility of the pleasures of life or of worldly possessions; he appears to have been averse by temperament to pleasures of life and worldly possessions from his childhood. But for his respect for elders, his parents and elder brother, probably he would not have married or waited to renounce the world. He was of an ascetic disposition, and renunciation was very natural to him.
He was born in an age when Sanyas and severe austerities were common. But those who preached such Sanyas and practised austerities did not have the spiritual outlook, or inward looking approach like Mahavira. To Mahavira, Sanyas and Austerities were not an end in themselves but the means to salvation. He was convinced that embodied existence was an evil which one should get rid of. Life, according to him, was bondage and the ideal was to free onself from bodily existence. Bodily existence was an obstacle to spiritual realization. All activities of the body, from breathing to eating and possession of any kind, resulted in injury to living creatures. Hence the only way to spiritual realization was to practise extreme austerities and renunciation of all activities of the body. Mahavira carried both these principles to their extreme logical conclusions.
The most important discovery of Mahavira is his realization that earth, air, fire, water, etc. are full of living creatures. This significant discovery 2500 years ago is the greatest achievement of Mahavira. This is a result of intuition or direct realization of Mahavira. Once this is realized, the principle of non-injury to living beings in all forms follows as an inevitable consequence. Mahavira inherited a long and well established tradition of non-injury to all living creatures. The Twentysecond Tirthankara, Neminath renounced marriage to save animals brought to be sacrificed on the occasion of his marriage ceremony. The Twenty-third Tirthankara Parshvanath, saved a serpent from fire at the risk of his life. Mahavira carried this great tradition further.
