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prevailed led the people to take animal food, though not permitted by the doctrines of religion which was strictly followed at the place of its origin. It must not be supposed that, India and its climate were congenial to the mode of life sanctioned by the holy scripts and teachings of the religion and therefore, the Indian Buddhists followed it in all its rigidity and others could not. The fact is that, while the people of other countries where Buddhism was preached, could accept it in its theoretical aspect, but found it very difficult to adopt its principles practically and change their mode of life in accordance with them. Doing so, it required a great deal of moral courage, strength of mind, avoiding temptation and so on. In India, its original home, it had its rival religions, everyone of which tried to maintain its own superiority over the others, so its old adherents were compelled to remain the strict followers of its primitive principles, however rigorous they may be, to the watching eyes of their antagonistic religionists. Its early votaries were cognisant of the fact that, lack of discipline can not but lead to the downfall of Buddhism in India, specially when the priciples of Jainism, the most humane of all the human religions had been brought into prominence by Mahavira Vardhamana, not
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