Jainism and Karnataka Culture

SR No.: 011062
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: S R Sharma
Publisher: Karnataka Historical Research Society Dharwar
Publication Year: 1940
Total Pages: 263
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 9 MB

Page 180

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JAINISM AND KARNATAKA CULTURE
"You use Kusa-grass, sacrificial poles, straw, and wood; you touch the water in the morning and in the evening; thereby you injure living beings and in your ignorance you commit sins over and over again.
"The law is my pond, celibacy my holy bathing place which is not turbid; penance is my fire, life my fire-place; right exertion is my sacrificial ladle; the body, the dried cow-dung; karman is my fuel; self-control, right exertion, and tranquillity are the oblations, praised by the sages, which I offer."
No wonder the Uttaradhyayana proclaims: "The value of penance has become visible; birth appears of no value. Look at the holy Harikeśa, the son of a Svapaka whose power is so great."
#28
The above illustration also serves to indicate some of the moral virtues sought to be inculcated by the early Jainas. Kunda-kundacārya, in the South, adds, "Inordinate taste for worldly things, impure emotions, hankering for and indulging in sensual pleasures, causing anguish to fellow-beings, and slandering them openly or covertly; these constitute the springs of evil." So, "To whatever extent the five senses, the four taints of emotions, the four instinctive appetites, are suppressed by a person, well established in the path of righteousness, to such extent the doorway for the entrance of evil is closed for that person." 25 Kanakasabhai Pillai has observed that Nirgranthas and Buddhists aimed at a high ideal of morality and that these two religions "necessarily exercised a very considerable influence upon moral and intellectual order, upon public ideas and sentiments in the Tamil country." 30 The same might be said about Karnataka. This was the natural outcome of a teaching that inculcated civic and philanthropic virtues born out of the principle of Ahimsa, which, in its active form, meant helping
29
28 Ullaradhyayana Sutra, S. B. E. XLV, pp. 50-56; Bühler, op. cit. pp. 3-4.
29 Pancaatikaya-súra, S. B. J. III, vv, 146, 147.
30 Kanakasabhai Pillai, The Tamils 1800 Years Ago, pp. 233-34.