Souls Serve One Another
The story
The fifth chapter of the Tattvartha Sutra lists the kinds of things that make up the world and the service each one gives. Motion, rest, space, matter and time each get theirs. When it reaches souls, the service it names is that they support one another. In the 1970s, for the 2,500th anniversary of Mahavira's death, Jains of every tradition put these words at the foot of the Jain emblem as its motto.
परस्परोपग्रहो जीवानाम्
parasparopagraho jīvānām
Tattvārtha Sūtra 5.21 (the same number in both recensions); our translation
The same moment, today
A car battery dies in an office parking lot on a freezing evening. The driver stands in the cold, holds up a pair of jumper cables, and waits. A stranger pulls up, pops the hood, and attaches the clamps. Neither of them asks for money, and they don't even exchange names. The engine turns over, they wave, and both people drive home. Nobody manages their life entirely on their own.
The fifth chapter of the Tattvartha Sutra lists the basic things that make up the universe. It explains what each thing does. Space gives room for objects to exist, and time allows things to change. When the text comes to living souls, it says their job is to serve one another. Jains live this out by straining drinking water to protect tiny bugs, and by not eating after dark. Many people mistranslate this line as 'live and let live.' That English saying tells you to mind your own business, but it isn't what the sutra means. The sutra says living things must actively support each other.
The lesson
Notice how many hands kept you safe and fed today. Do one small thing before tonight so someone else doesn't have to struggle.
Where this comes from
New Delhi, 1974
In 1974, Jain leaders gathered in India to mark the 2,500th anniversary of Mahavira's nirvana. The community had been split for centuries into two main traditions, the Digambaras and the Svetambaras. Most scriptures from one group aren't accepted by the other. The Tattvartha Sutra, written centuries earlier by Umasvati, is the big exception that both traditions revere. The leaders chose verse 5.21 from that book as the official motto for their unified emblem. An early commentator named Pujyapada explained the verse by pointing to a teacher and a student, who each help the other grow. The English here is a plain rendering of the original Sanskrit text, not a quote from a book.
A small reminder, on the desk or the car dashboard, that nobody makes it through a single day without help from someone else.
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