अहिंसा

Ahimsa

Non-violence, drawn more widely than in any other tradition: not only killing, but harm in thought, speech and inattention, extended to forms of life most systems do not count.

Ahimsa is the first principle and the one every other rule is derived from. What distinguishes the Jain version is its reach. Harm is not restricted to killing, nor to intentional acts, nor to beings with obvious sentience: it covers speech that wounds, thought that wishes harm, and the harm done by inattention to lives one did not notice.

That reach follows from the metaphysics rather than from sentiment. If every jiva is a soul with the same capacity for liberation, then the distinction between a life that matters and one that does not has no basis, and the only remaining question is how much harm a given action does. Ahimsa is therefore a discipline of attention before it is a rule: noticing the harm an ordinary action causes, and choosing the action that causes less.

It is also gradated, which is what makes it liveable. The tradition counts life by the number of senses it has, from one-sensed beings of earth, water, fire, air and plant matter up to five-sensed animals and humans, and holds that harm to a being of more senses is graver. This is why Jain diet excludes meat absolutely and root vegetables by custom, why the monsoon retreat exists — the rains bring out life that walking would crush — and why occupations involving slaughter are traditionally avoided.

The frequent objection is that perfect ahimsa is impossible, since breathing and walking kill. The tradition agrees, and says so first: complete non-violence belongs to the ascetic at the end of the path, and everyone else is reducing harm rather than eliminating it. A rule that could be kept perfectly would be a rule set too low.