appears as a principle in several traditions, usually alongside others that soften it in practice. Jainism puts it at the center and defines living beings widely, down to the microscopic life in soil. Follow that strictly and ordinary acts become suspect. How far does it actually go?
Far enough that restraint approaches not acting at all. The entry puts it plainly. This version of non-violence is so extreme that restrained action comes very close to an absence of action, since even breathing, drinking water or walking can harm something. Hence filtered water, no meat, and walking with great caution.
The Jains hold that the teaching of the omniscient Jinas expresses the eternal nature of the universe, and the surviving teaching is that of Mahavira. Their ethics rests on non-violence, non-absolutism and non-attachment, aimed at disentangling the self from karmic matter.
The reasoning behind the first of those is specific. Each living being is the transitory embodiment of a permanent divine-like self, the , which is unobstructed consciousness. Not harming others therefore means constant awareness of their presence and true nature, plus self-mastery and careful behavior.
The canon widens responsibility in two directions. It counts direct harm, harm you have others commit, and by letting it happen, and it counts physical, verbal and mental acts alike. Living beings run from , such as earth, water and plants, up to five-sensed humans, mammals and gods.
The result is a practice of filtered water, no meat and walking with extreme caution, and an acknowledgment inside the tradition that restrained action comes close to no action at all. Later texts added intention to the account, so that unintentional harm can be forgiven, and the many-sided perspectival method lets one act count differently from different angles.
wat. If every living thing holds a self, then breathing, drinking and walking all need care.
wat wat
A moral rule taken to its logical end shows what the rule actually demands, which is usually hidden by the exceptions a tradition allows itself.
How do we know?
Gorisse works from the Jaina canon, including the Canonical Text on Behavior from around the fourth to third centuries BCE and the Treatise on What There Is, then traces how the doctrine shifted later.
What is still unknown
This describes a philosophical and textual tradition, not a survey of how Jains live, and practice has always been graded between renunciants and householders.
Learn something?
Where to next
Does having more money make a person more willing to cut corners?ethics