JAINISM AND THE ENVIRONMENT
(JAIN DHARMA AUR PARYAVARAN)

Collard Lorence has written a book ‘At deadly sins of civilized man’ on great sins of the world.
These major sins are:
1.    Over growth of population
2.    High pollution in all fields of nature
3.    Excessive competition among all grounds of life
4.    Extreme desires of lavishness
5.    A decline in living standards
6.    Over look of traditional culture
7.    Motivation towards selfishness and false allegations of others
8.    Blindly developing dangerous atomic weapon

The roots of the above given problems are greed and cruelty, for the present era.
In the false belief of fame, human nature has become self destructive because of greed and cruelty.
After being tired of fully using natural resources, the humans are thinking of atomic war.
After fighting with nature, humans are moving towards self destruction.

Pollution – the world’s problem
The world is suffering from 3 major problems.
•    The developed countries have done all developments, so they believed that further development is in creating new machinery and gathering amenities. They have used all of their raw materials and natural resources, so now they are thinking of war to stop further development of other countries.
•    The ideal of development for the developing country is the richness and lavishness of the developed countries. To solve the problems of poverty and hunger, the developing countries are playing with the environment, and are dreaming to become a rich country by artificial resources.
•    The third and largest problem for the whole world is pollution, which has been created by everyone. The lavishing culture has given birth to this problem, which has destroyed the natural balance of the nature. These problems have created water contamination which is killing us. Air pollution which is causing breathing difficulties. The damage being done to land is weakening the growth elements which are necessary for plantation. Pesticides have changed the behavior, heart, mind, soul and character of all living beings. The industrial gases have poisoned the water and atmosphere. NOW! It is only the treasures of religion which can improve the current state of thoughts in all living beings. ONLY! The change in the beliefs, thoughts and the soul can save this world from the outer pollution. Saving this planet from pollution is only possible if the humans return to their original thoughts of preserving nature.

Dr. Ratha Krishnan says, ‘if we are not kind to one another then all of our efforts to make this earth peaceful are a waste’. Jainism was the first religion to recognize earth, water, air, fire and plantations are living forms. Micro organisms have been given further value by Jainism as they have more power than the above living forms. After the research of Sir Jagdish Chandra Basu, science has accepted that plantations are living forms. Only Jainism believes that earth, water, air and fire are also living forms and Jainism gives great value to them in their day to day living. The base of this faithful belief teaches that the whole cosmos contains 1 sense, and on the base of this all life forms from 1 sense to 5 senses are living. The Jain philosophy tells the whole cosmos is totally filled with life forms; whole cosmos is living so total environmental system is united with life force.

Jainism’s main and basic philosophy is ‘live and let live’. In this philosophy there is respect towards all the life forms in the environment. The belief of Jainism towards life within the environment includes earth, water, air, fire, trees, and plants and also includes energy, insects, animals, birds, human beings, invisible angels and life forms in hell. Respecting this whole environmental force, is to give all living beings the basic right to live and die naturally, in other worlds to protect the nature of the environment. For our happiness we should not disturb the nature of the environment, this is the principle of Jainism. Jain’s do not believe in harming the environment to achieve happiness. Non violence, satisfaction, less materialistic, practicing vegetarianism is the life values to purify the environmental forces permanently. This life value is a very strong base of Jainism, to show the structure of religion, Jain agamas contain an important phrase, this is

‘Dhammo vattu sahaavo khammaadi bhaavo ya dasa viho dhammo
Rayanatayam cha dhammo, jeevaanam rakhanam dhammo.

The characteristic of every life form is its own religion. There are ten characteristics of our soul e.g. sacrifice, etc. Real vision, real knowledge and real character are the soul’s religion and protecting the life force is its duty. By this means of religion, life force will improve by all aspects. This type of religion is an effective way of purifying the environment.

Religion is the name of nature

To know the basic nature and the character of anything and set them to stay in its natural way is the proper religion so the Jainism says anything’s character is its religion. The nature of our body is to take birth, grow and get destroyed in the fixed time, but when we expect a long life and healthy body then we are stepping towards harmful activities. We want a long lasting body so we are giving it many facilities and care but we have never heard the voice of the soul. For the pleasure of our body we are destroying other creatures before its natural death, this is cruelty, violence and lavishness, and the human has become faithless. Try to imagine a natural world without the existence of human beings. It would be the most beautiful planet and as auspicious as heaven, on the other half if you imagine a world only filled with human beings then it will be a living image of hell. We can currently see that people are suffering from skin cancer due to the direct rays of sun light entering our planet through the holes in the ozone layer (Australian civilians are suffering the most from this problem due to the holes in the ozone layer directly above the continent). If the damage to the ozone layer continues, then one day it will be completely destroyed and the rain of fire will directly land on our planet, this has already been predicted in the ancient Jainism scriptures. The higher level leaders should set an example by becoming vegetarians protect the world from global warming, caused by slaughtering houses; this will be a major solution for the environmental problems. Is it justice to nature if an animal is eat by a family in half an hour, this animal would have been fed the natures resources for many years by a company to prepare it for slaughter.  This regular practice has highly damaged the environment and it is a firsthand reason in the declining situation of this globes fate.

The famous Indian saint Kabirdas says:
        ‘ye chaader ko sur nar muni odhi
        Oadh ke maili kini, das Kabir jatan kar odhi
        Jyon kit yon dhar dini,
Meaning, this environment is a protecting us, like a baby is protected from the cold by a blanket. But by damaging the blanket due to irresponsibility it is now dirty and worthless. Kabir Das says that the blanket is protecting us so it is our duty to look after the blanket; likewise the environment is protecting us so it is our responsibility to look after it.

Stepping towards solutions

A person can resist and maintain his nature by self control and not giving trouble to others life, because of his indisciplinaty. There is one worthy phrase in the Jain agamas on this
        ‘Sui jahaa sasuthaa na nassai kayavarammi padiyaa vi
        Jeevo vi taha sussutho, na nassai gavo vi sansaare’
Meaning ‘the needle with a thread cannot be lost even within garbage, like wise a human with discipline and self control will not lose his identification while traveling within this intoxicated social world.’ Here the needle and threads example is perfect, because thread is the nature of a needle. Without a thread a needle can be harmful and vice versa sewing is not possible by thread without a needle. All scientific development is today’s needle, if don’t add the thread of controlled thought and balanced mind of human beings this needle will harm the whole universe, destroy the nature and pollute the whole environment, and if a man will insert a self controlled thread in the needle of improvement then only we can save the universe from destruction. Then only we can say in real meaning that
‘shemam sarva prajaanaam prabha vathu’
Meaning every citizen and every life form will live happily forever.
‘Sarve sukhinah santhu’

The ancient acharayas have said that ‘dharmo rakshati rakshitaha’ means when we save the religion, the religion will save us. This is very particular and depthful thing in the field of religion, to save the religion means saving the nature of every form in the correct way.  To maintain life in nature with its basic characteristic controlled by religion if human can do these efforts he must not have any harm by pollution and nature.

To protect the cleanliness and harmony of nature religions can introduce human to his nature and lifestyle is in the own hands of human being only. For this one does not have to make many efforts, does not need to make big programs but only to give respect to the surrounding life and environment and gradually change his habits. The healthy environment can be achieved on the belief and on behalf of religion by the following points:
1.    There is life in earth, water, fire, air, trees, and plants. These must be used as less as possible, and not misuse the natural resources.
2.    Like a honey bee without harming the nature live and let the people live
3.    Soul is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, so for its protection don’t collect unnecessary materials and saving our self from fall in the materialistic world
4.    The body is not permanent so don’t be confused about its immortality, so don’t use any products which directly or indirectly harm the animals, nature or any other part of the environment.
5.    To use only those resources for business and regular use which keeps the environment most balanced and which least harms the natural resources
6.    We should make the same amount of effort to clean the environment as we make to clean and purify the soul, we should be careful that others should not have to clean the filth we have created
7.    Real vision, real knowledge and real character are the needs to purify the soul, like wise simplicity, vegetarianism and discipline is the necessity to maintain a peaceful world
8.    If we apply Non violence, fearlessness, non materialism in regular life we can purify our religion and the environment.

The lovers of nature and the environment know how the river of Ganges falls in India. When the snow on the Himalayan mountains melts it flows down into the river Ganges, meaning all activities taking place in the higher levels will bring automatic effects in the lower levels, so the leaders of religions and knowledge must now melt by the heat of pollution and must hear the kind voice of the animal due to cruelty and violence done to them, then the awareness of the higher level will come down like the waves of river Ganges in ground level common people.

If the people will be aware about the purification of the environment then we are not only fighting against pollution and violence but can be sure that we will be victorious forever. This will be the real victory for Jain religion, Jain philosophy and the living and non living forms of the whole universe.