Roots of Violence: Jīva, Life and Other Things

Roots of Violence:

Jīva, Life and Other Things

Rustam Singh

The roots of violence go into the nature of jīva.[1] What is jīva? Jīva is that which lives, that which is alive. But what is the nature of jīva? Being alive, jīva tries to prolong its life. In order to do that, jīva eats and consumes other jīvas, or it kills them trying to defend itself. By doing one or both of these things, jīva keeps itself alive. However, by doing these things jīva extinguishes the life of other jīvas.

What does this analysis show us?

Firstly, what we call life is found in jīva, or it is jīva that carries life. Secondly, jīva and life are inextricably bound up with each other: there is no jīva without life, and there is no life without jīva. Thirdly, in order to remain what it is (in one jīva)––that is, life––life tries to extinguish life (in another jīva).[2]

This latter observation reveals, in turn, a frightening fact about life, a fact that needs to be underlined. Namely that it is not just (one) jīva that tries to kill or consume (another) jīva; it is also life that tries to extinguish life. But is not this a strange thing to happen––that life itself should try to extinguish life? It is a strange thing, and in fact this is the most common feature of life, but one which is most commonly forgotten. But, if we do not forget this feature and remain focused on it, then it leads us on to see that life is not that One entity that we often take it to be: there are pieces of what we call life and they are as many as there are jīvas. Further, the nature of these pieces is such that they cannot come together and become one entity. As such, there is no such entity as Life, with a capital L, and it is this that makes it possible for life in one jīva to extinguish life in another jīva.

And here, we should modify our initial statement and say that more than the nature of jīva, it is the nature of life itself in which the roots of violence lie. For, the nature of jīva comes from the nature of life. In a way, jīva is only a vehicle through which life manifests its nature. By doing that, it also gives its own nature to jīva. But this does not mean that jīva is secondary to life, or that life is a supernatural entity that chooses or creates jīva to manifest itself. It only means that life, as it is manifested in jīva––and that is the only way it manifests itself or the only way we see it manifested–– manifests its own nature and in the process gives its nature to jīva.

What, then, is the nature of life? We have had a glimpse of this nature in what we have said above. But we will elaborate it here a bit further. We have seen that it is life which makes jīva alive and then also keeps it alive. At the same time, life itself is something which tries to keep itself alive. And this is a trait it shares with jīva. However, since life can keep itself alive only in jīva, it propels jīva to kill or consume other jīvas. The aim here is not simply that jīva should kill or consume other jīvas; rather the aim is to make sure that this particular piece of life keeps itself alive or is not decimated by the life in another jīva. This is how the life in a jīva is able to prolong itself. This is how, too, a jīva goes on killing or consuming other jīvas so long as it is alive––so long as it itself is not killed or consumed by another jīva, or so long as the life in it can no longer prolong itself, that is, keep itself alive.

When it can no longer prolong itself, life comes to an end, dies. And this again is a trait it shares with jīva. What is significant, however, is that––and this is what follows from these observations––what we know and revere as life cannot keep itself alive without causing death, which is the death of jīvas. Life, as such, is a harbinger of death, the only one apart from the other natural or unnatural causes which, too, may extinguish the life of a jīva.

Clearly, life is not that benign entity which it is held forth as being. On the contrary, it is the most demonic thing around. And it is more demonic than any demon we can imagine. Its demonicity lies in this: as an entity which is alive and has to keep itself alive, it constantly extinguishes other lives. This is how an unimaginable number of deaths take place on the earth every day. These deaths are not caused by a force that we cannot know anything about. They are caused by a thing which is right here among us, and in fact is within us: they are caused by life.

* * *

But who are jīvas? What are the examples of jīvas?

Jīvas include animals and humans, insects and birds, and beings smaller than insects. They also include plants and trees. Do they all belong to the same category? In one sense, yes: they all try to kill and/or consume other jīvas.[3]

* * *

Yet humans think that they are different from other jīvas. They often compare themselves with animals and take pride in saying that they are superior to them.

This tendency goes to ancient times. It has been a general tendency in human thought, including in religious and scientific thought, and continues into our own times.

Now, the thing that humans have often mentioned to show their superiority to other jīvas is their ‘superior’ ability to think, and language, as it has been developed by them, is regarded as part of it.

But has this ability made humans different from other jīvas in such a way that they no longer kill or eat jīvas? They have definitely stopped eating other humans. This was certainly a result of thinking: they began to feel that it was disgusting to eat their own kind. But this disgust has not been commonly extended to include other jīvas. Moreover, although they have stopped eating other humans, they have not stopped killing them––and hurting them and other jīvas in all those innumerable ways which humans have invented. We can see that there are two sides to this thinking. One side shows humans the direction which leads them away from killing and hurting. The other side turns them into ever more sophisticated killers and torturers. It will not be wrong to say that humans have made progress in both these directions. Nevertheless, they seem to have gone further in the latter direction.

Hence the question that we should ask here is this: Is it enough to have the ability to think?

* * *

One can think about thinking in various ways but we should keep in view here the context in which we are trying to talk about thinking. And the context is this: There is a claim by humans that they are superior to other jīvas and that what makes them superior is their superior ability to think. They are claiming, in other words, that jīvas other than humans do not have this ability to the same degree as humans and that because of this lack they are inferior to them. But there is another thing that is being said here, namely that the nonhuman jīvas perform their functions more or less without thinking.[4]

Now, if we presume this view to be true for the moment, then what is the main function that nonhuman jīvas perform? In order to keep themselves alive, they try to kill or consume other jīvas. Thus killing or consuming other jīvas and keeping themselves alive is an activity that is natural to them: it does not require much thinking. However, we have seen that killing and consuming other jīvas is an activity that is also performed by humans. Therefore we can say that like the jīvas other than humans, this activity is natural to humans as well and that in their case either it does not require much thinking. Thinking, as such, is not something that humans require in order to kill and consume other jīvas. This activity belongs to a realm where they do things quite unthinkingly, and this is the realm that they share with other jīvas which supposedly do little thinking.

But what about activities in which humans kill and hurt other jīvas––including human jīvas––for purposes other than killing and consuming them? Can we say that these activities too require little thinking; that little thinking goes into them? Clearly we cannot take such a position, for these are activities which have been consciously and carefully thought of by humans. In fact, they have been thinking about them and trying to devise them for a long time.

There are two things that follow here. Firstly, even though humans are able to think, thinking is not involved in all their actions. There is an activity that they do quite unthinkingly and this is one of the main activities they perform as jīvas, namely killing and consuming other jīvas. Secondly, not all of their activities that involve thinking are such that they would meet the approval of a different kind of thinking. This latter kind of thinking too is found among humans and it believes that humans should not kill and hurt other jīvas, including their own kind.

As such, it is really not enough to have the ability to think; what is important is also the kind of thinking we do and the direction in which this thinking takes us.

* * *

And here we should ask one more question: Why have humans gone further in the direction that we have pointed out above––the direction that makes them even more sophisticated killers and torturers? What are the roots of the thinking that has led them to this direction?

It is quite probable that the roots of this thinking lie in the same drive[5] that makes humans––and other jīvas––kill and/or consume jīvas other than themselves. This is so because this drive is the only factor we have seen so far that has made humans kill and consume other jīvas. The sophistication they have acquired over a period as killers and torturers, and the kind of thinking that has gone into this acquisition, can only have been the result of either a gradual refinement of this drive or a transformation of a part of it in such a way that the thinking retains somewhat the character of the drive.

Nevertheless, there are differences between this thinking and the drive it seems to have come from. These differences are the following.

Firstly, the drive was and continues to be natural; it is something that jīvas have when they come to life. It is something that they receive as jīvas; it is part of the life which is there in them. The thinking under focus, on the other hand, has at least partly been acquired; partly because even though it might have been the result of a gradual transformation of a part of the drive, the human agency itself seems to have played a role in it, for it looks like a transformation that must have, after a point, been desired. Secondly, whereas the drive makes humans kill and consume other jīvas in order to prolong their own lives, the thinking leads to killing and/or torture for more complex purposes. These purposes are not always connected with that basic purpose which is the purpose of the drive, namely prolonging life, but sometimes they are. For example, when animals are tortured in the process of testing medicines, it is primarily that basic purpose the testers have in mind, for medicines are manufactured essentially for prolonging life.[6] However, animals and humans are killed, maimed and tortured for a number of other purposes and these purposes have no connection with prolonging human life.

Given these differences, it would be logical to say that the thinking that leads to such complex acts of violence has, to a large degree, become disconnected from our life as jīva. And that to the same degree, humans are no longer jīvas––as the nonhuman forms of jīva still are––but have become something other than jīva, something which is much more complex than jīva but is also much more vicious and cruel. In other words, some of the transformation that has taken place in the jīva represented in the human form is such that it marks a degradation, rather than upliftment, in the basic nature of jīva. At the same time, this transformation also marks a distance from the human jīva found in nature and this distance takes place in such a way that the ‘human’ in the human jīvas no longer remains human but rather becomes a monster––still retaining the human form.[7]

* * *

However, not all humans, at a given moment, have undergone this transformation and turned into monsters. Nevertheless, a majority of them carries this potential. That is how in our daily life although we believe that we are all the time surrounded by humans, yet strictly speaking that is an illusion. Quite a few people around us, at any time of the day––and this could include us as well––are no longer fully human, and at least some of them are fully-fledged monsters. If we start counting all the ways in which humans behave in a monstrous fashion, we might end up with a long list. But I should mention a few examples.

It is monstrous, I think, to eat the flesh of animals and fowl which are reared only for this purpose. It is monstrous especially when they are reared in inhuman conditions and by eating their flesh we sanction this treatment.

It is monstrous to use deodorants and perfumes which are poured into the eyes of animals to see how safe they are for humans.

It is monstrous to test chemical and bacterial agents (and medical drugs) on unsuspecting human populations. It is monstrous, firstly, to make such agents.

It is monstrous to set up plants to produce nuclear energy and industries to produce gases knowing that if they burst, they will frightfully harm humans, animals and other jīvas for decades or may be centuries to come.

Are not all motor vehicles small, little monsters moving around on the surface of the earth and polluting it? Aeroplanes are definitely monsters and so are rockets and satellites.

It is monstrous to make bombs and weapons which will kill and damage not only humans but also nature. It is monstrous to use such weapons.

Killing people in the name of religion, caste, creed, race and language etc. is the height of monstrosity.

Human trafficking is monstrous. So also is animal trafficking and killing animals for their skin.

Aborting female foetuses because they are female is sheer monstrousness.

Animals performing in circuses is a monstrous sight. And animals in zoos, cabins and cages.

Making huge profits by making and/or selling anything is monstrous.

It is monstrous to coerce people to buy new things––such as computer software––when the old are still serviceable.

Computer hardware itself is monstrous, if it is immune to decay. It follows that producing anything which cannot be degraded by elements is monstrousness.

It is monstrous to turn rivers away from their natural course or link them up in an unnatural way.

It is monstrous to build large dams and artificial lakes which inundate and submerge villages, forests and myriad forms of life and leave people and animals homeless and without means to sustain themselves.

Forcing people and animals out of their habitats for setting up industries and digging mines is monstrous.

Industries and enterprises that pollute water, air and other natural elements are monstrosities. It is monstrous to allow them to do that.

Spraying pesticides and insecticides on crops and fruit and making people eat such food is nothing short of monstrousness.

* * *

This list shows in brief that humans in general have emerged as a big monster on the face of the earth. What has exacerbated the effect of their monstrousness is the increase in their population in the last few centuries. The size of their population has pushed up enormously the amount of violence they perpetrate. And this includes the violence caused by the increase in the amount of living and nonliving things they use and consume.

It is true that the growth in population is not the only factor that has pushed up consumption. That is how levels of consumption in the richer countries are much higher than those in the poorer ones, or they are higher among the middle and upper classes everywhere than among the lower ones. Nevertheless, the poorer countries and the lower classes seem to be taking the same path that the richer countries and the middle and upper classes had taken, or at least they wish to do that. Secondly, in my opinion, one should no longer feel ashamed of saying that now there are too many humans on the earth.

Whatever the case, a simple increase in the levels of consumption is not the only fact about consumption. There is also the fact that, whenever they are in a position to do so, humans tend to use and consume almost everything in excess, and it is this fact that I think is the most crucial in any discussion of consumption in connection with violence.[8] For, in the present-day context of the life on the earth, the human tendency to consume in excess is a central reason for violence in the world. It is also, as such, a central element in the monstrosity of humans. In fact, it is probably the central feature to emerge in human nature after the drive that makes humans––along with other jīvas––kill and consume other jīvas. At the same time, it is a feature whose emergence makes humans different from other jīvas in as fundamental a way as the so-called ability to think. Actually, I wish to regard the emergence of this tendency in human nature––namely, the tendency to consume in excess––as the most fundamental event in the evolution of human nature, an event that––much more than their ability to think––marks the deviation of humans from their nature as jīva and their assumption of the typically monstrous in their nature.[9]

When we delve into the nature of this tendency, we find that it has little connection with thinking. Depending upon how much money people have––and this is true of all the classes––they buy and use things fairly indiscriminately, that is, without thinking. If we were to ask them, they would of course tell us the reason for buying each thing and they would convince us quite easily that they need that thing. And there is a thinking involved in this. But surely, that is not the level of the thinking we are discussing. What we are discussing is this: Do people really need all the things that they think they need? And we need to remember here that these things are part of a list that has been getting longer for quite a few centuries. When we keep in mind this level of thinking, we discover that people buy and use things almost blindly, and sometimes they buy things that they do not even use. Also, they buy things for the fun of it or just because these things are there and are available, or even because other people are buying them. And so if we look at this phenomenon carefully, we can see that this tendency is almost like a drive.

* * *

But there is another thing that humans do quite blindly, and this is the way they pursue what is called knowledge, trying to acquire as much of it as possible. As we know, humans as a body are busy pursuing knowledge all the time and they have been doing it since ancient times. What kind of knowledge do they try to acquire? It is the knowledge about the world and about things in general, both living and nonliving; knowledge about themselves, their mind and body; knowledge about histories, economies and societies. What has been the aim of acquiring such knowledge? Purportedly the aim has been to increase the well-being of humans, but this answer is not accurate. It would be difficult to say that all those people who are actively engaged in the pursuit of knowledge of different types at any given time or are in any way or at any level associated with it are motivated by this aim or that they are motivated by it all the time. In this connection, what seems closer to the truth is this: Many of these people are driven by curiosity; many others wish to devise new things or generate new ideas; the interest of many is to make profit; and there are others––a large number––who are engaged in it simply because it provides a job. Finally, there are quite a few people who involve themselves in this pursuit of knowledge because by using it they would be able to kill and destroy other people. This is the kind of knowledge that is pursued, for example, for the so-called strategic purposes.

Now, it needs hardly be said that not all the ways and means used during this pursuit of knowledge are benign. In fact, some of them are distinctly and dangerously harmful to the human and other jīvas.

Further, and as we have seen in the list above, the use of a lot of this knowledge has played a major role in damaging the earth and nature and in killing and harming the human and other jīvas, and it is still playing this role. As such, the desire to acquire knowledge incessantly and indiscriminately, which has turned into a habit and already looks like a drive, is one more thing that holds a central place in the monstrosity of humans.

But let us take note of two more things about this desire. Firstly, most of the knowledge that humans now acquire under the influence of this desire is artificial. And by this I mean that, unlike most of the knowledge acquired by other jīvas, this knowledge is no longer acquired with the use of senses while living a life in nature. Rather, it is acquired by using a faculty which seems to be getting largely disconnected from both the senses and nature, namely, thinking. Secondly, this knowledge is excessive. That is, a lot of human knowledge now is such that it is not required. One can mention a few examples here: (1) The knowledge that tells humans how to make nuclear and chemical weapons. (2) The knowledge that enables them to clone animals and will possibly enable them to also clone humans. (3) The knowledge that reveals to them the sex of a foetus. (4) The knowledge that allows them to genetically modify crops and vegetables, and possibly in future also humans. (5) Even the knowledge of the inner structure of a plant, tree or flower.

But these are not the only examples.

(And I am reminded here of Yājñavalkya and Gotama the Buddha. Both of them forbade excessive or misplaced curiosity, by which they probably meant pursuing knowledge for its own sake or pursuing purposeless knowledge.)[10]

Now, I have pointed out these two features of human knowledge because they have implications for our discussion here and also in general. For example, a substantial way of remaining sensitive to the life in nature, that is, to jīvas other than humans, is to keep in touch with them through senses. But when the life of the senses is pushed to the background, is kept in abeyance, or is distanced from nature, or, in other words, when humans no longer look at themselves as jīvas who too are located in nature but rather as beings who are away from it and in fact more or less superior to it, and when what is called nature is reduced to being just an object of curiosity or just a source of exploitation for consumption––then, the knowledge that is thus acquired is likely to become insensitive or at least indifferent to the life in nature, and, ultimately, in fact, to the life of humans. Secondly, it is also then likely to lose sight of its limits or boundaries, because in such a situation, namely, by losing touch with the life in nature, it loses its direction. And perhaps it is no longer an exaggeration to say that the human pursuit of knowledge, at least in the last few centuries, has, to a degree, lost its direction.

Meanwhile, isn’t it ironic that humans have dissected an endless number of plants and flowers, animals and insects, but they still do not know how to live with them? (This is the kind of knowledge humans like to gather and in such ways.) Actually, they do not even know how to live with other humans. What is perhaps even truer is that they know how to do this but do not care to follow such knowledge. (And this again shows what kind of knowledge they value and prefer.)

Some of this latter kind of knowledge, too, humans have evolved by thinking. For example, the knowledge that tells humans how to live and conduct themselves in such ways that the least possible violence is done to the world. Saints, sages and philosophers have many times come up with the knowledge of this kind and it is available in a variety of forms.

* * *

Yet, such knowledge is rarely put into practice. In fact, it is not valued very highly and is often held to be unusable. Which reminds me of Adeimantus who, in The Republic, more than two thousand years ago, tells Socrates that “people who study philosophy for too long”, namely philosophers, become completely useless as members of society. And it is instructive to listen to Socrates’ answer to Adeimantus here. He says that “it’s quite true that the best of the philosophers are of no use to their fellows”; however, it is not philosophers who should be blamed for this, “but those who fail to make use of them.”[11]

* * *

I will end this essay by pointing out some crucial differences between jīva as such and the human-as-a-monster: (1) Jīva kills (or plucks or picks) little more than it needs to eat at a given moment or time. It rarely wastes. (2) The things that jīva needs for a purpose other than eating and filling its belly are minimal. And it manages to make them or forage for them without causing much damage to the earth or nature. (3) Jīva rarely stores. When it does, it does so in limited quantities and for brief periods. (4) Jīva does not produce things that are not found in nature. As such, it does not produce things that cannot be degraded by elements. (5) It follows that jīva does not produce weapons other than those given to it by nature. (6) It also follows that jīva does not pollute the earth, the air and water. (7) Jīva does not try to acquire artificial and excessive knowledge. And, (8) Jīva tries to cure itself only by using as medicine things that are available in nature.

It should be clear from what we have seen earlier in this essay that none of these things applies to humans-as-monsters.

---

NOTES

[1]  Jīva is a Sanskrit word which has been used in many senses. Monier Monier-Williams, in his A Sanskrit-English Dictionary, mentions the following senses of the word: living, existing, alive; any living being, anything living; life, existence; the principle of life, vital breath, the living or personal soul, etc. (Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited, Delhi, 2002, p. 422.) However, we are concerned here only with the sense that is retained in this essay and is then given a particular elaboration. In the rest of this essay, this word will appear without italics.

[2] The Encarta World English Dictionary (1999) defines life as “the quality that makes living animals and plants different from dead organisms and inorganic matter. Its functions include the ability to take in food, adapt to the environment, grow, and reproduce.” Similarly, according to The Concise Oxford English Dictionary (1999), life is “the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.”

However, life is not just a quality or condition, for if we look at it carefully life seems to have an agency which is independent of the agency of the jīva that carries life.

[3] For the knowledge of the behaviour of plants and trees especially, it is still helpful to read Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. According to Darwin, they actively try to deny food to other plants and trees, including those belonging to their own species, in order to ensure their death.

[4] I should note here that biological theory has supported this view for a long time and, in fact, this still seems to be the dominant view in that theory, even though recent research in the behaviour of animals and birds shows that this is not altogether true. Animals and birds such as chimpanzees, elephants, whales, dogs, parrots and crows etc. have shown remarkable ability for abstract thinking and I suspect that researchers do not know at this moment the actual depth and reach of their thinking. At the same time, whether some more jīvas also have this kind of ability is not clear yet to people investigating nonhuman jīvas.

[5] The Concise Oxford English Dictionary (1999) defines a drive as “an innate, biologically determined urge”. Encarta World English Dictionary (1999) defines it as “a powerful need or instinct, e.g. hunger or sex, that motivates behavior”. We may add that a drive may also be acquired over a period of time, and may gradually disappear under changed conditions.

[6] As we know, medicines are manufactured not only for prolonging the life of the patients; making money is always a strong motivation. That is how there are so many spurious medicines around. We also know that the testing of medicines on animals has been questioned on moral grounds. Clearly, I am not defending that practice here.

[7] The Concise Oxford English Dictionary (1999) defines a monster as “a large, ugly, and frightening imaginary creature”; also as “an inhumanly cruel or wicked person”. According to Encarta World English Dictionary (1999), a monster is “any large, ugly, terrifying animal or person found in mythology or created by the imagination, especially [something] fierce that kills people”; also somebody “whose inhumanity or vicious behaviour terrifies and disgusts people”.

We can see that there is no monster to be found in nature. At the same time, however, a monster is also not a person or even a jīva any more. A monster, as we have here defined it, is to be found only in the so-called human world and has the shape and appearance of a human jīva.

[8] I am aware that large numbers of humans are denied access to even the basic things they need in order to survive. But that is only another facet of the violence we are talking about.

[9] We can see this tendency going back to the ancient times. There were always people in history who placed little check on what and how much they would consume. However, as we look back into history such people seem to be fewer in number. The relative lack of the variety of things to be used also reduced the volume of consumption in earlier periods. But in the last few centuries humans seem to have gone berserk in this matter. There is no end to the number of things they need in order to use them in various ways including putting them into their stomachs. And this tendency cuts across modes of production and types of societies. Thus it is not just the capitalist mode of production and the liberal societies which have shown this tendency. Nor is it linked very closely with modern advertising (which certainly is one of the most violent and most crude and obnoxious ways of persuading people to buy and consume things), for advertising has only used this tendency. In other words, the tendency was already there to be exploited by forces like the ‘advertisement industry’.

But the people who belong to this ‘industry’ were not the only ones who exploited this tendency. In fact, they came much later. Those who were among the first to exploit it were the manufacturers, who later developed into the industrialists and business people of the modern period. These were the people––and they continue to do so––who, with the help of the ‘inventors’ and ‘innovators’, began to fill the marketplace with a dazzling variety of things. Meanwhile, an increasing number of people had money to spare and this money gave a boost to the desire to purchase. It is true that not all people could buy many things but there were always some who could and they did it with gusto and excitement. Their number has grown over the recent centuries and has of late become huge. Simultaneously, the tendency to buy, use and consume things has developed into a mania, a disease.

[10] See Bŗhad-araņyaka Upanişad, Third Chapter, Sixth Brahmaņam, in Paul Deussen, Sixty Upanisads of the Veda (translated from German by V. M. Bedekar and G. B. Palsule), Volume I, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited, Delhi, pp. 456-57; and “The Short Dialogue with Mālunkya”, in Sayings of the Buddha: A selection of suttas from the Pali Nikāyas (translated with an introduction and notes by Rupert Gethin), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008, pp. 168-72.

[11] Plato, The Republic, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1955, pp. 248-50.

This paper was presented at the international conference on Religion, Violence, Language, held at Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, on 9—11 April 2012.

A somewhat revised version of this paper was published in the book The Weight of Violence: Religion, Language, Politics, ed. by Saitya Brata Das and Soumyabrata Choudhury, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2015.

Email: rustamsingh1@gmail.com