ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about distinguishing suicide from self-sacrifice and also deals with Indian, Jain, Buddhist, Hindu attitudes towards self-destruction. The suicide and self-sacrifice both result in self-destruction, but the emotional impulses, which lead to a self-inflicted death either relegate the death to the sin of suicide or elevate it to the heroic act of self-sacrifice. The distinction is significant: suicide is deplored but self-sacrifice is glorified. Jainism, with its denial of the sensual self, was tolerant, even supportive, of religious self-destruction, but only in certain cases and in consultation with a teacher. As Hinduism developed, the tendency was to continue to condemn suicide, but the Puranas and regional custom gave numerous occasions for acceptable forms of self-sacrifice. The Buddhist attitude towards self-destruction was different from that of both Hindus and Jains. In more recent Buddhist history, voluntary death, especially by self-cremation, was found acceptable for those who denied the reality of the phenomenal world.
