Truth and Non-Violence
Truth must be balanced with non-violence; harmful truth requires skillful expression.
When truth would cause harm, Jainism teaches expressing it kindly, at the right time, or withholding it. Truth divorced from compassion becomes violence. The two vows work together.
Speak truth, but speak it sweetly; truth spoken harshly loses its virtue.
Satya and ahimsa must be practiced together.
Ethics
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- What Jainism says about ahimsa and non-violence
Truthfulness and non-harm can pull against each other, and here non-harm governs the timing and the wording. A truth told to wound is read as violence.