traditions that have their origin in the Indian subcontinent.
According to its own traditions, the teachings of Jainism are eternal,
and hence have no founder; however, the Jainism of this age can be
traced back to Mahavira, a teacher of the sixth century BCE, a
contemporary of the Buddha. Like those of the Buddha, Mahavira's
doctrines were formulated as a reaction to and rejection of the
Brahmanism (religion based on the Hindu scriptures, the Vedas and
Upanisads) then taking shape. The brahmans taught the division of
society into rigidly delineated castes, and a doctrine of
reincarnation guided by karma, or merit brought about by the moral
qualities of actions. Their schools of thought, since they respected
the authority of the Vedas and Upanisads, were known as orthodox
darsanas ('darsanas' means literally, 'views'). Jainism and Buddhism,
along with a school of materialists called Carvaka, were regarded as
the unorthodox darsanas, because they taught that the Vedas and
Upanisads, and hence the brahman caste, had no authority.
1. Metaphysics
According to Jain thought, the basic constituents of reality are souls
(jiva), matter (pudgala), motion (dharma), rest (adharma), space
(akasa), and time (kala). Space is understood to be infinite in all
directions, but not all of space is inhabitable. A finite region of
space, usually described as taking the shape of a standing man with
arms akimbo, is the only region of space that can contain anything.
This is so because it is the only region of space that is pervaded
with dharma, the principle of motion (adharma is not simply the
absence of dharma, but rather a principle that causes objects to stop
moving). The physical world resides in the narrow part of the middle
of inhabitable space. The rest of the inhabitable universe may contain
gods or other spirits.
While Jainism is dualistic—that is, matter and souls are thought to be
entirely different types of substance—it is frequently said to be
atheistic. What is denied is a creator god above all. The universe is
eternal, matter and souls being equally uncreated. The universe
contains gods who may be worshipped for various reasons, but there is
no being outside it exercising control over it. The gods and other
superhuman beings are all just as subject to karma and rebirth as
human beings are. By their actions, souls accumulate karma, which is
understood to be a kind of matter, and that accumulation draws them
back into a body after death. Hence, all souls have undergone an
infinite number of previous lives, and—with the exception of those who
win release from the bondage of karma—will continue to reincarnate,
each new life determined by the kind and amount of karma accumulated.
Release is achieved by purging the soul of all karma, good and bad.
Every living thing has a soul, so every living thing can be harmed or
helped. For purposes of assessing the worth of actions (see Ethics,
below), living things are classified in a hierarchy according to the
kinds of senses they have; the more senses a being has, the more ways
it can be harmed or helped. Plants, various one-celled animals, and
'elemental' beings (beings made of one of the four elements—earth,
air, fire, or water) have only one sense, the sense of touch. Worms
and many insects have the senses of touch and taste. Other insects,
like ants and lice, have those two senses plus the sense of smell.
Flies and bees, along with other higher insects, also have sight.
Human beings, along with birds, fish, and most terrestrial animals,
have all five senses. This complete set of senses (plus, according to
some Jain thinkers, a separate faculty of consciousness) makes all
kinds of knowledge available to human beings, including knowledge of
the human condition and the need for liberation from rebirth.
2. Epistemology and Logic
Underlying Jain epistemology is the idea that reality is multifaceted
(anekanta, or 'non-one-sided'), such that no one view can capture it
in its entirety; that is, no single statement or set of statements
captures the complete truth about the objects they describe. This
insight, illustrated by the famous story of the blind men trying to
describe an elephant, grounds both a kind of fallibilism in
epistemology and a sevenfold classification of statements in logic.
Every school of Indian thought includes some judgment about the valid
sources of knowledge (pramanas). While their lists of pramanas differ,
they share a concern to capture the common-sense view; no Indian
school is skeptical. The Jain list of pramanas includes sense
perception, valid testimony (including scriptures), extra-sensory
perception, telepathy, and kevala, the state of omniscience of a
perfected soul. Notably absent from the list is inference, which most
other Indian schools include, but Jain discussion of the pramanas seem
to indicate that inference is included by implication in the pramana
that provides the premises for inference. That is, inference from
things learned by the senses is itself knowledge gained from the
senses; inference from knowledge gained by testimony is itself
knowledge gained by testimony, etc. Later Jain thinkers would add
inference as a separate category, along with memory and tarka, the
faculty by which we recognize logical relations.
Since reality is multi-faceted, none of the pramanas gives absolute or
perfect knowledge (except kevala, which is enjoyed only by the
perfected soul, and cannot be expressed in language). As a result, any
item of knowledge gained is only tentative and provisional. This is
expressed in Jain philosophy in the doctrine of naya, or partial
predication (sometimes called the doctrine of perspectives or
viewpoints). According to this doctrine, any judgment is true only
from the viewpoint or perspective of the judge, and ought to be so
expressed. Given the multifaceted nature of reality, no one should
take his or her own judgments as the final truth about the matter,
excluding all other judgments. This insight generates a sevenfold
classification of predications. The seven categories of claim can be
schematized as follows, where 'a' represents any arbitrarily selected
object, and 'F' represents some predicate assertible of it:
1. Perhaps a is F.
2. Perhaps a is not-F.
3. Perhaps a is both F and not-F.
4. Perhaps a is indescribable.
5. Perhaps a is indescribable and F.
6. Perhaps a is indescribable and not-F.
7. Perhaps a is indescribable, and both F and not-F.
Each predication is preceded by a marker of uncertainty (syat), which
I have rendered here as 'perhaps.' Some render it as 'from a
perspective,' or 'somehow.' However it is translated, it is intended
to mark respect for the multifaceted nature of reality by showing a
lack of conclusive certainty.
Early Jain philosophical works (especially the Tattvartha Sutra)
indicate that for any object and any predicate, all seven of these
predications are true. That is to say, for every object a and every
predicate F, there is some circumstance in which, or perspective from
which, it is correct to make claims of each of these forms. These
seven categories of predication are not to be understood as seven
truth-values, since they are all seven thought to be true.
Historically, this view has been criticized (by Sankara, among others)
on the obvious ground of inconsistency. While both a proposition and
its negation may well be assertible, it seems that the conjunction,
being a contradiction, can never be even assertible, never mind true,
and so the third and seventh forms of predication are never possible.
This is precisely the kind of consideration that leads some
commentators to understand the 'syat' operator to mean 'from a
perspective.' Since it may well be that from one perspective, a is F,
and from another, a is not-F, then one and the same person can
appreciate those facts and assert them both together. Given the
multifaceted nature of the real, every object is in one way F, and in
another way not-F. An appreciation of the complexity of the real also
can lead one to see that objects are, as they are in themselves,
indescribable (as no description can capture their entirety). This
yields the fourth form of predication, which can then be combined with
other insights to yield the last three forms.
Perhaps the deepest problem with this doctrine is one that troubles
all forms of skepticism and fallibilism to one degree or another; it
seems to be self-defeating. After all, if reality is multifaceted, and
that keeps us from making absolute judgments (since my judgment and
its negation will both be equally true), the doctrines that underlie
Jain epistemology are themselves equally tentative. For example, take
the doctrine of anekantevada. According to that doctrine, reality is
so complex that any claim about it will necessarily fall short of
complete accuracy. The doctrine itself must then fall short of
complete accuracy. Therefore, we should say, "Perhaps (or "from a
perspective") reality is multifaceted." At the same time, we have to
grant the propriety, in some circumstances, of saying, "Perhaps
reality is not multifaceted." Jain epistemology gains assertibility
for its own doctrine, but at the cost of being unable to deny
contradictory doctrines. What begins as a laudable fallibilism ends as
an untenable relativism.
3. Ethics
Given that the proper goal for a Jain is release from death and
rebirth, and rebirth is caused by the accumulation of karma, all Jain
ethics aims at purging karma that has been accumulated, and ceasing to
accumulate new karma. Like Buddhists and Hindus, Jains believe that
good karma leads to better circumstances in the next life, and bad
karma to worse. However, since they conceive karma to be a material
substance that draws the soul back into the body, all karma, both good
and bad, leads to rebirth in the body. No karma can help a person
achieve liberation from rebirth. Karma comes in different kinds,
according to the kind of actions and intentions that attract it. In
particular, it comes from four basic sources: (1) attachment to
worldly things, (2) the passions, such as anger, greed, fear, pride,
etc., (3) sensual enjoyment, and (4) ignorance, or false belief. Only
the first three have a directly ethical or moral upshot, since
ignorance is cured by knowledge, not by moral action.
The moral life, then, is in part the life devoted to breaking
attachments to the world, including attachments to sensual enjoyment.
Hence, the moral ideal in Jainism is an ascetic ideal. Monks (who, as
in Buddhism, live by stricter rules than laymen) are constrained by
five cardinal rules, the "five vows": (1) ahimsa, frequently
translated "non-violence," or "non-harming," satya, or truthfulness,
asteya, not taking anything that is not given, brahmacharya, chastity,
and aparigraha, detachment. This list differs from the rules binding
on Buddhists only in that Buddhism requires abstention from
intoxicants, and has no separate rule against attachment to the things
of the world. The cardinal rule of interaction with other jivas is the
rule of ahimsa. This is because harming other jivas is caused by
either passions like anger, or ignorance of their nature as living
beings. Consequently, Jains are required to be vegetarians. According
to the earliest Jain documents, plants both are and contain living
beings, although one-sensed beings, so even a vegetarian life does
harm. This is why the ideal way to end one's life, for a Jain, is to
sit motionless and starve to death. Mahavira himself, and other great
Jain saints, are said to have died this way. That is the only way to
be sure you are doing no harm to any living being.
While it may seem that this code of behavior is not really moral,
since it is aimed at a specific reward for the agent—and is therefore
entirely self-interested—it should be noted that the same can be said
of any religion-based moral code. Furthermore, like the Hindus and
Buddhists, Jains believe that the only reason that personal advantage
accrues to moral behavior is that the very structure of the universe,
in the form of the law of karma, makes it so.
4. References and Further Reading
* Battacharya, Hari Mohan. Jaina Logic and Epistemology. Calcutta:
K. P. Gagchi and Company, 1994.
o A full explanation and critical examination of Jain theory
of knowledge.
* Battacharya, Narendra Nath. Jain Philosophy: Historical Outline.
Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1976.
* Benesch, Walter. An Introduction to Comparative Philosophy.
London: Macmillan Press, 1997.
o A systematic comparison of Western philosophical systems
with Asian, including Jain, systems.
* Jacobi, Herman, trans. Jaina Sutras. Sacred Books of the East,
vols 22 and 45. London: Oxford University Press, 1884.
o The only English translation of the Jain scriptures.
* Sharma, Arvind. A Jaina Perspective on the Philosophy of
Religion. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 2001.
* Tatia, Nathmal, trans. That Which Is: Tattvartha Sutra. San
Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994.
o An early Jain handbook.
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