173
Unlike Buddha, who had set his heart on a generic otherworld, consumed by the
conception of maya or illusion associated with earth, Mahavira was firmly planted
on solid ground. He elevated that ultimate goal of a sentient being’s soul to the state
of “samatva,” a sense of kinship with all fellow life forms, and recognized that “the
kernel of what makes a human being human, is the same kernel that makes every
other organism itself”
39
. Of the 363 known schools of Jain philosophy that thrived
at the time of Mahavira, the most prominent of them had focused upon Kryiavada,
that doctrine involving jiva, or the soul, and what pious intentions and behavior
were required to stave off the avalanche of ajiva, or karmic impurities (corollaries of
hinsa, violence) in the body, and—by inherent connectivity—in the soul
40
.
By the time Mahavira died, aged 72, in meditation beneath a sala tree in Pavapuri, today part of Bihar State, surrounded by five palm-laden hills and a large lotus
pond (his footprints still said to be found nearby), the weary, but wise poet/statesman on behalf of all life forms had achieved what later Greek philosophers would
think of as a hylozoistic naturalism. It was the essence of a soul’s reciprocity with
all other souls, a kinship key to all ecology. While Buddhism saw nirvana as meaning both extinction, total affirmation, nothingness, and emptiness, Mahavira was
more than satisfied to recognize in nirvana, the very earth from which its concepts,
and Mahavira himself, originated (Fig. 18.3).
39 See op.cit., Life Force – The World Of Jainism, Tobias, p. 67.
40 ibid., p. 66.
18.8 Biological Restoration
Unlike Buddha, who had set his heart on a generic otherworld, consumed by the
conception of maya or illusion associated with earth, Mahavira was firmly planted
on solid ground. He elevated that ultimate goal of a sentient being’s soul to the state
of “samatva,” a sense of kinship with all fellow life forms, and recognized that “the
kernel of what makes a human being human, is the same kernel that makes every
other organism itself”
39
. Of the 363 known schools of Jain philosophy that thrived
at the time of Mahavira, the most prominent of them had focused upon Kryiavada,
that doctrine involving jiva, or the soul, and what pious intentions and behavior
were required to stave off the avalanche of ajiva, or karmic impurities (corollaries of
hinsa, violence) in the body, and—by inherent connectivity—in the soul
40
.
By the time Mahavira died, aged 72, in meditation beneath a sala tree in Pavapuri, today part of Bihar State, surrounded by five palm-laden hills and a large lotus
pond (his footprints still said to be found nearby), the weary, but wise poet/statesman on behalf of all life forms had achieved what later Greek philosophers would
think of as a hylozoistic naturalism. It was the essence of a soul’s reciprocity with
all other souls, a kinship key to all ecology. While Buddhism saw nirvana as meaning both extinction, total affirmation, nothingness, and emptiness, Mahavira was
more than satisfied to recognize in nirvana, the very earth from which its concepts,
and Mahavira himself, originated (Fig. 18.3).
39 See op.cit., Life Force – The World Of Jainism, Tobias, p. 67.
40 ibid., p. 66.
18.8 Biological Restoration