Citation

Somasundaram O, Tejus Murthy AG, Raghavan DV. Indian J. Psychiatry 2016; 58(4): 471-474.

Affiliation

Research Assistant, Schizophrenia Research Foundation, R/7A, North Main Road, Anna Nagar West Extension, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Medknow Publications)

DOI

10.4103/0019-5545.196702

PMID

28197009

PMCID

PMC5270277

Abstract

Jainism is one of the oldest religions of India. Since the founding of the religion, Jainism has given prominence to Sallekhana, death by ritual fasting facing north, as exemplified in the deaths of Bhadrabahu and Chandragupta Maurya. The controversy whether this religious form of starvation is related to suicide is debated since the time of the early Jain teachers. History is replete with instances where kings and warriors who have failed in their duty punish themselves for their sin and welcome death as expiation. Such starvation deaths are referred to as vadakirutthal (literally, facing north) and become quite prevalent during the Sangam age, probably copied from the Jain culture. The present-day thinking on Sallekhana needs to be considered here in more detail which should be brought to the knowledge of current-day psychiatrists. These ideas are relevant to psychiatric counseling of the ordinary people and would be very useful if included in the armamentarium of the mental health professionals.

Language: en

Keywords

Jainism; Sallekhana; Santhara; Tamil history; psychiatry