So it’s been a little over a month since I have been on the blog
and quite a few interesting things have happened. The first of my interesting experiences (and the first in my
four-part blog series “The Month in Review”) in the last 30 days was my primetime
cable television debut as an “expert” for the National Geographic Channel’s
documentary program “Taboo” on October 30th.
The episode I was featured in was titled “Unusual Burials”
and presented a segment on a company down south called Holy Smoke that packs
your loved one’s cremated remains into ammunition cartridges and then another
segment on the Jain ritual of fasting to death known as Sallekhana. I got to give my two cents about both
topics and as a bioethicist and scholar of religion who was serving in the role
of “Caption Obvious” on the show I weighed in on what the different religious
traditions have to say about encasing the earthly remains of the deceased into
a shotgun shell. According to my
research, shockingly, none of the religions say anything about it whatsoever.
[Insert sound effect of dissapointment…waa-waah] So just FYI, doing a google search of what the Bible or the
Koran or Torah have to say about it probably won’t get you anywhere, though you
will probably find some pretty interesting YouTube videos along the way. The second segment of the show on the
topic of Sallekhana was a little more
up my alley in that it documented the final four weeks in the life of Mattaji,
an elderly Jain nun who was in the last stages of her twelve year long vow of Sallekhana, which would ultimately
result in her death as a result of starvation.
For the last six years people have been asking me “
Who are the Jains?” and “
What in the heck is Sallekhana?” And now that the show has aired I am
getting these questions via text, tweet, e-mail, facebook message and stranger
on the street in numbers I simply didn’t expect.
So I would like to take this opportunity to elaborate on
some of the themes central to Jainism that just couldn’t be covered given the
time constraints of the show.
So without further ado…
Jainism is an ancient Indic religion that teaches followers
that the path to enlightenment requires commitment to non-violence and strict
asceticism. Followers of Jainism
are known simply as Jains and for nearly three millennia Jains have been one of
the smallest but most influential religious minority groups in India. Currently, they number around 3 million
in a country of over 1 billion people and in the last few decades Jain
communities have popped up in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia,
South Africa, Singapore and Thailand.
 |
| The religious icon of the Jain faith. |
So what do they believe? Jains do not believe in a supreme omnipotent being. Instead, they believe that every being
on this earth, from a blade of grass to a human contains a living soul, called
a jiva. Each of these souls, whatever
species it may be in, is considered of equal value and should be treated with
respect and compassion. Thus,
Jains are strict vegetarians and pacifists and in fact are so careful not to
disturb the environment they refuse to farm or pick fruit from trees on
religious principle. I happened to
be in Gurgaon, India during the Monsoon season and everyday when it rained
hundreds of thousands of very tiny little frogs would hop around on the
steppingstones of the temple I was staying at. None of the Jains would step outside until all of the frogs
had hopped back into the grass for fear of accidentally stepping on one.
Like Hindus, Jains believe in reincarnation and seek to
attain ultimate liberation – meaning the ultimate goal is to stop the
continuous cycle of birth, death and rebirth and release the soul into an
immortal state that knows all and can see all but feels nothing.
They call it
moksha but we here in the West might be more familiar with it by another
name:
nirvana.
 |
Jains believe that 24 individuals have achieved moksha
and these souls are known as the Tirthankaras. |
So how does one achieve liberation? Liberation or moksha is achieved by eliminating all karma from the soul. In the West we have come to use the
word karma as if it is synonymous with the notion of what goes around comes
around. But for Jains karma is
believed to be an invisible physical substance that clings to the soul. So for every thought or act karmic
particles adhere to the soul or jiva. Thus, the more you think, the more you
act, the more life experience you acquire, the more karmic particles stick to
you weighing down the soul and making it harder for the soul to break free from
the prison of the body and be released.
Perhaps now would be an appropriate time to point out that the Jain view
of the body is very different than the Judeo-Christian understanding of the
body. Judeo-Christianity views the
body as the temple of God whereas for Jains the body is a prison for the soul. The soul is believed to transcend the
flawed physical form all being take on as opposed to the Judeo-Christian notion
of the physical form being corrupted by sin but ultimately created in the image
of God.
Each soul has to achieve liberation or nirvana, if you like,
through its own efforts.
Remember
there is no god to go to for advice or to curry favor with.
In the life of a Jain, one reaps what
one sows.
A person’s physical form
is a direct representation of the karma they accumulated in their past lives.
For example, physical characteristics
such as being tall, having fair skin and an athletically proportioned body are
the result of karma just as short stature, a bad complexion, and physical
disability are believed to be punishment or rather the result of karma accrued
from transgressions in previous lives.
Also the family you are born into is seen as either a karmic reward or
punishment for the actions you performed in a previous life.
 |
| This is the demi-goddess Padmavati |
So in order to prevent one’s soul from accumulating karma
there are five supreme mahavrates or
vows that a Jain must take. The
chief vow is that of ahimsa, or the
practice of non-violence. The
others are non-attachment to possessions, truthfulness, not stealing and sexual
restraint with celibacy as the ideal.
For those who do not choose to become monks or nuns and instead opt to
become householder the five vows are modified to allow for the possession of
property and the act of intercourse for procreation and these vows are called anuvratas rather than the mahavrates. It is believed that these principles when practiced diligently
lead to the three pillars of Jain faith: “right knowledge, right conduct and
right belief.”
Now on the question of “Who
are the Jains? There are four
basic kinds of Jains. There are
Jain monks (sadhus), Jain nuns (sadhvis), Jain householder men (shravakas) and Jain householder women (shravikas). One of the most revered symbols in Jainism is the svastika, with the four quadrants of the
svastika representing the four stations of the Jain soul through the cycle of life. This svastika should not be confused with the
Nazi party’s swastika, which is the ancient Indic svastika’s reversed image and was in fact adopted by Adolf Hitler
for its association with the theory of a pre-historic Aryan invasion of the
Indian sub-continent. But that is
a whole other blog post for another time.
Is there a hierarchy to the four types of Jain people? Supposedly no, but spend some time in
Northern India and read some of the Jain histories and it becomes fairly clear
that the lay women occupy the bottom wrung of the Jain social and spiritual
ladder. For example it is believed
among certain Jain sects that a woman must be reincarnated as a man before she
can even hope to try for the possibility of achieving liberation or moksha.
Depending on the family a child comes from Jain boys and
girls can select their life path or have it selected for them by around the age
of eight, which is the age at which the boys and girls can enter the monastery
and become sahdus and sahdvis. Those that do not become holy men and women thus become
householders. The basic rules for
monks and nuns and householders are all the same, it is just that the monks and
nuns are expected to adhere to them more strictly. For example, monks and nuns can never have sex, but
householders are permitted to engage in a limited amount of intercourse for the
purposes of procreation and ideally only to produce one or two children, enough
to replace themselves.
Jain monks lead especially austere lives.
Jain monks of the
Svetambar sect wear only a single piece of white unstitched cloth
while monks of the
Digambar sect live
out their lives completely naked.
The rationale is that to have clothing is to possess material wealth and
since one of the five vows of Jainism is non-possession clothes don’t make the
cut.
 |
Monks renounce all possessions but are allowed a feather
broom (pictured here) to sweep the ground before them so
they don't step on any little creatures. |
I would imagine at this point that some of you are thinking,
“this is really interesting Whitny but what do naked monks and reincarnation
have to do with that Sallekhana thing
and the old lady starving herself to death?” Well if you will indulge me a little further, we have
learned a little about how Jains live, now let us discuss how they die.
I am going to make a bold statement here. The
ideal death in the Jain faith is ritual suicide by means of starvation. Only they don’t call it suicide, they
call it Sallekhana, and they are very
quick to point out that the act of starving oneself to death is the most
natural, normal and peaceful way to die and is in no way suicide, as suicide
means inflicting injury on oneself.
In their view slow starvation is simply allowing nature to take its
course and facing death bravely.
It is believed that the only way to purge karma from the
soul is through asceticism, which means that monks and nuns deny themselves the
pleasures of the world in order to attain spiritual bliss. The idea is that if you deny yourself
all sensual pleasures, feel nothing, fear nothing, live for nothing then you
can focus on the soul and either attain enlightenment or at least be
reincarnated in the next life in a better physical form. This might be an appropriate time reiterate
that a woman (in certain sects) who adheres to the strict rules of asceticism
can only hope to improve her physical being to the level of a man in the next
life. In the original and
traditional texts only men are able to attain liberation.
Jain scriptures are addressed mainly to the monks. It could be argued that this focus on
the monks has resulted in a great deal of improvisation and variation in the
spiritual rituals of nuns and householders. But the importance of asceticism occupies the central place
in Jainism and regardless of the existence of a spiritual hierarchy monks,
nuns, and the lay members of the Jain community ideally all meet death the same
way. So regardless of whether or
not they practiced extreme asceticism for the majority of their life or were a
housewife until the death of their husband and then became a nun at age 80 they
will practice asceticism when nearing death. And they will meet death via Sallekhana.
Sallekhana, in
Jain thought, is embracing death voluntarily. When both householders and ascetics foresee that the end of
life is very near either due to old age, senility, incurable disease, severe
famine, attack from an enemy or a wild animal, etc. they take the vow of Sallekhana, meaning they commit
themselves to slow starvation. And
the vow can be taken in three different forms representing three different
levels of rigor.
1. The
longest vow of Sallekhana is twelve years in duration
2. The
medium vow is one year in duration
3. The
short vow is anything up to six months in duration
At the point that a person decides to take the vow of
Sallekhana they must ask permission from their guru. To clarify, a guru would be a monk who serves as a preceptor
and advises the person on spiritual matters. Increasingly Jains are seeking the permission or at least an
opinion from their physician as well as their guru. Assuming that permission is granted the person either
decides independently or consults with their physician as to the approximate
amount of time they have left and then they develop a program of fasting to
coincide with their vow of Sallekhana.
According to Jain teaching, a householder, who accepts this
vow with pure mind, should gives up all personal relationships, friendships,
and possessions. He or she should forgive relatives, companions and servants or
acquaintances and should ask for the pardon of all the sins (they don’t really
have the concept of sin per se…but the terminology will have to suffice here)
he or she committed in his or her lifetime. He should then discuss honestly with his preceptor or guru
all the transgressions committed by him including morally wrong acts which he
asked others to commit. During the period of this vow he should eliminate from
his mind all the grief, fear, regret, affection, hatred, prejudice, passions,
etc., to the fullest extent.
I will read to you an English translation by the Hermann
Jacobi of the original Prakrit passage in the Acarangasutra describing the process of Sallekhana:
“Knowing the twofold obstacles (i.e. bodily and mental), the
wise ones, having thoroughly learned the law, perceiving in due order that the
time for death has come, get rid of karman (2)
Subduing the passions and living on little food he should
endure hardships. If a mendicant
falls sick let him again take food. (3)
He should not long for life, nor wish for death; he should
yearn after neither life nor death. (4)
He who is indifferent and wished for the destruction of
karman, should continue his contemplation. Becoming unattached internally and externally, he should
strive after absolute purity. (5)
Whatever means one knows for preserving one’s life when too
severe penance brings on sickness and the probability of instant death, that a
wise man should learn and practice in order to gain time for continuing
penance. (6)
In a village or in a forest, examining the ground and
recognizing it as free from living beings, the sage should spread the straw and
commence the suicide by rejecting food. (7)
Without food he should lie down and bear the pains which
attack him. He should not for too
long a time give way to worldly feelings which overcome him. (8)
When crawling animals such as live on high or below, feed on
his flesh and blood, he should neither kill them nor rub the wound. (9)
Though these animals destroy the body, he should not stir
from his position.
After the asravas have ceased he should bear pains as if he
rejoiced in them. (10)
When the bonds fall off, then he has accomplished his life.
To elaborate on this process…Initially, he or she should
gradually give up food and drink boiled water only. Ultimately he will give up liquids as well. He or she should also give up all the
passions they once had as they are considered mental weaknesses. The person should then become engrossed
in the meditation without paying attention to the body and should avoid the
five transgressions which are:
1) wishing to postpone death
2) wishing death would come sooner
3) fearing death
4) thinking of friends and relatives at the time of death
5) hoping for some sort of reward after death
It is recommended that a person who has taken the vow of
Sallekhana select a place to sit for the
fast where the government does not object to such a vow.
Ideally it should be a place where
other people do not visit and are unlikely to interfere with the process.
Traditionally a person taking
Sallekhana should find a quiet place in
the forest, preferably under a tree and then focus on nothing and nothingness
and allow themselves to be overtaken by the natural forces around them, their
body reclaimed and their soul released for either reincarnation or released
into the cosmos if it has attained liberation. The translations of the original
texts say that in order for
Sallekhana
to commence properly the person must sit in silent meditation and bear all
discomfort.
It says that if
insects and vermin bite him he must not defend himself or rub the wound because
that would interfere with natural process.
In India Sallekhana is sanctioned as a religious death and
so it is acceptable to perform Sallekhana in the home or in a monastery or in
the wilderness.
 |
| An adherent carrying out the ritual of Sallekhana. |
According to the Sadhus, Sadhvis and Jain scholars Sallekhana is a pleasant death. You leave the world without a care and
a great euphoria is experienced followed by a peaceful death. Many eyewitness accounts tell of the
person taking Sallekhana laughing and
smiling during the final stages of their death. There is debate as to what causes this euphoria. Some say it is the person experiencing
spiritual enlightenment and others say it is the result of the shrinking of
white and grey matter in the brain.
Many proponents of Sallekhana
say that it is not really starvation in the classic sense at all in that the
actual cause of death is renal failure.
In the final stages of the ritual the adherent forgoes water and shuts
down their kidneys, which essentially allows them to just drift off to sleep,
just like many elderly people in rest homes do the world over.
But all that debate over the mechanics and biology of death
aside, Sallekhana is an ancient and
sacred practice and has profound spiritual meaning for the adherents and their
family members. A person doesn’t
just happen into Sallekhana…and once they are committed there is no going
back. This is serious business.
Right now I am researching the current legal battle in India
where human rights activists have filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in
the High Court of Rajasthan arguing that Sallekhana should be classified as suicide
and not protected under the religious freedom legislation of the Indian
constitution. We shall see how
this all shakes out and I will keep you posted as to how the court rules. But in the meantime, at the risk of
self-aggrandizing, I would encourage anyone who can to watch the episode of
“Taboo” on the National Geographic Channel entitled “Unusual Burials” to get a
glimpse inside the world of Jains and perhaps gain a broader view of what
end-of-life means to different people.
Post Script:
As happy as I am to see Sallekhana in the spotlight and be able to share information about the Jain religion and culture it came at the price of having to see myself on camera in High Definition on my parent's 50 inch flat screen. Let me just say for the record that no one should have to see themselves with that tight a shot on their face on such a big screen. It's like you're in an episode of The Twilight Zone seeing your own doppelgänger. And it's not a matter of thinking I should have looked more attractive on camera...it's a matter of seeing someone who was supposedly me but in no way was a person I recognized. The episode plays my voice over footage of the ritual before it shows my face and as I was watching the episode my initial thought was "Why is my mom on tv?" I sounded just like my mom but in my head I don't sound a thing like her. Further, in my mind I am more pigmented than I appeared on camera, and I am not used to seeing myself talk on camera. Seeing still photos of yourself and then seeing a moving image of yourself makes you aware of all of the facial ticks you weren't previously conscious of. So the lesson to be taken from this is that in the future if you ever do television...don't watch yourself back. You'll just become convinced that you have a rounder, doughier, more monotone and somewhat creepier doppelgänger out there doing your job.
