North London Interfaith Events

Jainism and Nonviolence

Summary of a talk by Vinod Kapashi, 16th October 2007

Most Jains live in India, although there are some in southern Africa, North America and 25,000 - 30,000 in UK. There are about 7 million Jains world wide. Not a big figure if you consider the population of India is 1 billion. But Jainism is a very ancient religion. We have no date when it was founded but we believe there have been 24 enlightened souls whom we call Tirthankaras, or Ford-finders. The 24th was Lord Mahavir. He was a contemporary of Buddha. Everyone knows about Buddhism and Lord Buddha but Mahavir is a comparatively unknown figure.

Mahavir and the Buddha were both born in the 6th century BCE in North India, both were born into a royal household, both left their royal palace in search of ultimate bliss. They both found enlightenment but their philosophy differed to a certain extent. Buddha founded what we now call Buddhism and although Mahavir himself did not found a new religion he expounded the philosophy of nonviolence which developed into the Jain religion. The recorded history of Jainism started in the time of Lord Mahavir who was born in 599 BCE.

When Lord Mahavir was 30 years old he left everything and spent twelve and a half years meditating, going round from place to place, suffering hardships, going without food and water, living in the jungle with no possessions. After these years of meditation he attained supreme, ultimate knowledge, final wisdom. In Jain terminology this is called Kevala gyan; in Buddhist terminology Bodhi. He started preaching the principles of Jainism as we know them now. He preached for 30 years and died at the age of 72. When I say died, he obtained nirvana or moksha at the age of 72 in 527 BCE.

Jains have 45 books which came directly from Lord Mahavir’s teaching. These Jain scriptures have been preserved and translated into many languages, including English. Now, more and more people are reading Jain philosophy because they are attracted to the philosophy of nonviolence and they see its relevance in everyday life - in ecology, the environment and our love towards human beings, animals and all other living beings.

After Lord Mahavir died two main sects developed. These are Swetambers and Digambers. Swetamber monks wear white clothes and Digamber monks are sky-clad as a sign of ultimate renunciation. Naturally you wouldn’t become a Digamber monk nowadays in our modern city life. Swetambers are very much in the majority both here and in India.

There are five main principles in the Jain religion .

The first and most important is the philosophy of nonviolence, which we call ahimsa. This is almost accepted now as an English word because the UN has declared 2nd October as Ahimsa day. This was the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, who learned a lot from the Jain faith. He took his philosophy of nonviolence from a Jain Guru.

So the first principle is non-violence, the second is truth, the third is non-stealing, fourth is non-possessiveness and the fifth is celibacy.

You have the same morals and principles in Buddhism as well. Buddhism and Jainism at certain points are the same because Buddha and Mahavir were both preaching the principles of nonviolence.

At a certain time in the life of Lord Buddha he thought that meditating and going without food for days and weeks on end wasn’t right and he adopted the Middle Path. If you read about Buddhism the original name was the Middle Path and that’s how this name came about. The Buddha thought Hinduism was too lenient and Jainism was too strict. So he decided on the Middle Path. Jainism is a strict religion, the Path of Penance; there are lots of restrictions about what we can and can’t eat, how we go about in our life. But the first principle of ahimsa is supremely important in Jainism. If you take this away from Jainism, Jainism will not exist. Everything revolves around that one word- ahimsa, nonviolence. You might ask what is new about that? Every religion talks about nonviolence, no religion says we must go out and kill someone; no scripture propagates physical violence. But when Jains talk about ahimsa it is not just about physical nonviolence. We have to love every living being. Not just live and let live – no, that is not enough. Live and help others to live.

Jains believe in the philosophy of interdependence. We depend on animals, we depend on rivers, water, mountains, air. Animals and birds depend on us. We are interdependent. We can’t just go and destroy or kill anything, anyone. It is our duty to look after one another. Animals, birds, the environment, air and water all help us so we must look after each and every thing. In the modern world when we talk about ecology and the environment, we realise how dependent we are and that we should not pollute water or air, or kill animals ruthlessly. We are not masters of the world, but share it with other living things.

Jains say you can practise nonviolence by mind, by words and by deeds. You can say bad words, think bad things. These are ways of committing violence just as much as physical violence. These three ways of committing violence are again divided into three. You can commit violence yourself, you can ask others to do it on your behalf or you can approve of someone else’s act. If someone dies in a car accident you might say “He deserved it”. That is violence because you are approving it. So there are nine ways of committed violence.

Jains say that if you harm accidentally, it is not true violence although of course it is harmful. We say there is life everywhere, in plants and vegetation, in water, in air. So Jains are vegetarian. But we have to live. Although we can’t live without committing some sort of violence, we can minimise it. For example, Jains don’t eat root vegetables, because of the harm this will do to other forms of life when the vegetables are taken from the ground. We do not eat at certain times of day and many, especially monks and nuns, drink only cool boiled water.

We can categorise forms of life. At the bottom are plants and lower forms of life, then there are upper forms of life that are two-sensed, three-sensed, four-sensed and the highest form, humans, have five senses.

But everything revolves around the principle of ahimsa.

We have our temples and images, our Thirtankaras, enlightened souls. We pray to Lord Mahavir. In a way we worship him but we don’t say “O God, answer our wishes, give me a bigger car, a bigger house”. We go to our temples to say “O Lord, I would like to be like you, to cultivate your virtues”.

There are more than 10,000 Jain temples in India and some are so beautiful. If ever you go to India don’t miss those like Mount Abu or

Palitana where there are 800 temples on one hill. In Bihar there are beautiful temples. These temples were built about 1,000 years ago. In this country there is a temple in Leicester, and in Potters Bar a new one was built last year. There is a house temple in Kenton which you are welcome to come and see.

We have two main festivals. One is the birthday of Lord Mahavir which comes in March or April (according to the lunar calendar). Then there is the festival of penance (if festival is the right word). It’s not an occasion for singing and dancing. For eight days many people fast and in the evenings they meditate. There is a special ritual.

We ask forgiveness from each and every living being. We say, I might have hurt someone’s feelings, done something bad, or said something wrong, please forgive me. We send forgiveness cards to one another. (or email nowadays). Every year we forget and forgive. We accept our faults and ask for forgiveness. So we wipe the slate clean and start afresh. We don’t talk about Mahavir or anything like that. It’s just a festival of forgiveness. It would be good if everyone could adopt this ritual and think about forgiving those who have wronged them and asking pardon for the wrong they have done.