|
|
|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
(3) to take nothing that is not given, (4) to observe chastity, (5) to renounce all pleasure in external objects.
These vows receive an extensive and strict interpretation by means of five explanatory clauses applicable to
each and to be construed with reference to deed, word, and thought, to acting, commanding and consenting.
Thus the vow not to kill forbids not only the destruction of the smallest insect but also all speech or thought
which could bring about a quarrel, and the doing, causing or permitting of any action which could even
inadvertently injure living beings, such as carelessness in walking. Naturally such rules can be kept only by an
ascetic, and in addition to them asceticism is expressly enjoined. It is either internal or external. The former
takes such forms as repentance, humility, meditation and the suppression of all desires: the latter comprises
various forms of self-denial, culminating in death by starvation. This form of religious suicide is prescribed
for those who have undergone twelve years' penance and are ripe for Nirvana[260] but it is wrong if adopted
as a means of shortening austerities. Numerous inscriptions record such deaths and the head-teachers of the
Digambaras are said still to leave the world in this way.
Important but not peculiar to Jainism is the doctrine of the periodical appearance of great teachers who from
time to time restore the true faith[261]. The same idea meets us in the fourteen Manus, the incarnations of
Vishnu, and the series of Buddhas who preceded Gotama. The Jain saints are sometimes designated as
Buddha, Kevalin, Siddha, Tathagata and Arhat (all Buddhist titles) but their special appellation is Jina or
conqueror which is, however, also used by Buddhists[262]. It was clearly a common notion in India that great
teachers appear at regular intervals and that one might reasonably be expected in the sixth century B.C. The
Jains gave preference or prominence to the titles Jina or Tirthankara: the Buddhists to Buddha or Tathagata.
2
According to the Jain scriptures all Jinas are born in the warrior caste, never among Brahmans. The first called
Rishabha, who was born an almost inexpressibly[263] long time ago and lived 8,400,000 years, was the son of
a king of Ayodhya. But as ages elapsed, the lives of his successors and the intervals which separated them
became shorter. Parsva, the twenty-third Jina, must have some historical basis[264]. We are told that he lived
250 years before Mahavira, that his followers still existed in the time of the latter: that he permitted the use of
clothes and taught that four and not five vows were necessary[265]. Both Jain and Buddhist scriptures support
the idea that Mahavira was a reviver and reformer rather than an originator. The former do not emphasize the
novelty of his revelation and the latter treat Jainism as a well-known form of error without indicating that it
was either new or attributable to one individual.
Mahavira, or the great hero, is the common designation of the twenty-fourth Jina but his personal name was
Vardhamana. He was a contemporary of the Buddha but somewhat older and belonged to a Kshatriya clan,
variously called Jnata, Nata, or Naya. His parents lived in a suburb of Vaisali and were followers of Parsva.
When he was in his thirty-first year they decided to die by voluntary starvation and after their death he
renounced the world and started to wander naked in western Bengal, enduring some persecution as well as
CHAPTER VII. THE JAINS[251] 94
Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I.
self-inflicted penances. After thirteen years of this life, he believed that he had attained enlightenment and
appeared as the Jina, the head of a religious order called Nirganthas (or Niganthas). This word, which means
unfettered or free from bonds, is the name by which the Jains are generally known in Buddhist literature and it
occurs in their own scriptures, though it gradually fell out of use. Possibly it was the designation of an order
claiming to have been founded by Parsva and accepted by Mahavira.
The meagre accounts of his life relate that he continued to travel for nearly thirty years and had eleven
principal disciples. He apparently influenced much the same region as the Buddha and came in contact with
the same personalities, such as kings Bimbisara and Ajatasattu. He had relations with Makkhali Gosala and
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plkwiatpolny.htw.pl
|
|
| Cytat |
Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
|
|
