Pratikramana

Pratikramana is the Jain rite of repentance and self-review, a periodic examination of conscience in which the practitioner recalls the faults committed since the last such rite, confesses them, repents, and resolves against their repetition. The word means "turning back", a return from transgression toward one's true nature and toward the vows one has undertaken. Central to the rite is the asking of forgiveness from all living beings for any harm done to them, whether knowingly or unknowingly, and the granting of forgiveness to all in return, an act that flows directly from the Jain commitment to non-violence, ahimsa, toward every form of life.

Because even the most careful Jain cannot avoid all harm, walking, breathing and eating unavoidably injure minute living things, pratikramana serves as the regular cleansing of the soul from the subtle karmic matter that such unavoidable and avoidable faults accumulate. It is performed daily by the devout, morning and evening, and at longer intervals, the observance growing in fullness on the annual occasion of its greatest importance.

The most solemn pratikramana falls during Paryushana (or, among the Digambara Jains, Das Lakshana), the chief annual festival of self-purification, culminating on its final day in Samvatsari, the yearly rite of universal forgiveness. On that day Jains everywhere perform the great pratikramana and utter the phrase Micchami Dukkadam, roughly, "may all the wrong I have done be as nothing", to family, friends, acquaintances and strangers alike, seeking pardon for any hurt caused over the past year and freely extending it to others. The custom reaches beyond the immediate community, with letters and messages of forgiveness exchanged across distances, so that the year's accumulated grievances are deliberately set down.

This annual clearing of the moral ledger gives concrete social form to the Jain conviction that enmity and the harm it breeds bind the soul, and that forgiveness, both sought and granted, is a discipline essential to liberation. Pratikramana thus unites the private examination of conscience with a communal ethic of reconciliation, and stands among the practices by which Jainism translates its rigorous doctrine of non-violence into the texture of everyday life.