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THE NINE CATEGORIES OF
life which one will spend as a god (Devatā āyuṣya), or a human being (Manuṣya āyuṣya), or a lower animal (Tiryañċ dyusya). The greatest and the final reward of punya is Tīrthaṅkara nāmakarma, which ensures one at last becoming a Tīrthaṅkara.
The Fourth Category: Pāpa.
The eighteen kinds of Sin.In order to understand the religion of the Jaina we must try and grasp their idea of sin, for it is a very different conception from the Western, being in fact often ceremonial rather than moral.
i. Jīva hiṁsā.To take any life seems to the Jaina the most heinous of all crimes and entails the most terrible punishment; yet the central thought of Jainism is not so much saving life as refraining from destroying it. ‘Ahiṁsā parama dharma—Destroy no living creature! Injure no living creature! This is the highest religion!’ declared a modern Jaina lecturer, and with almost Irish eloquence he goes on to say: ‘I stand before you this noon to speak on a religion whose glory the dumb creatures, the cows, the goats, the sheep, the lambs, the hens, the pigeons, and all other living creatures, the beasts and the birds sing with their mute tongues; the only rehgion which has for thousands of years past advocated the cause of the silent-tongued animals: the only religion which has denounced slaughter of animals for sacrifice, food, hunting, or any purpose whatever,’[1] ‘The foundation principle of the Jaina religion’, writes another,[2] ‘is to abstain from killing.’ They even call their faith the rehgion of non-killing (Ahiṁsā dharma). To people believing thus, killing (Hiṁsā) is the greatest sin and abstaining from killing (Ahiṁsā) the most binding moral duty. There is a higher and a lower law for ascetics and for the laity. A monk must strive not to take any life