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JAINISM AND VEGETARIANISM 71 But, one may well ask, giving up to what purpose ? Is there any virtue in the mere act of meaningless abnegation ? Jainism itself provides the answer “Non-injuring is the highest religion"; the sacrifice is then a true sacrifice, not mere weak submission, for the high and ennobling purpose of the larger achievement of personal and world-wide good.
On this foundation Jainism and vegetarianism are built.
Shall we for one moment see the effect of the belief and practise of these things from the separate angles of their subjective and objective consequences ?
Both Jainism and vegetarianism reverence the mind and soul, and the body. Abstention and self-discipline are fundamental ingredients in each of them. Mr. Jain has pointed out that his creed has in it the means to stop the festering sores of warfare and bring in the thousand years of peace.” Stopping of wars is not surely a negative act. It is regarded from one standpoint as a restriction of the "right" (if one may beg the use of the word to shew its manifest absurdity) of killing. But to stop killing is not a negation; it is and of necessity involves the conferment of the gift of life on those who would otherwise be doomed to become the victims of the lust of war. This is a matter very near our hearts in Europe, where only a decade ago the youngest and finest of the manhood of ten nations fell to the sword and drenched the Continent with their blood. Equally so is it near our hearts to denounce the killing for meat of the weak and helpless animals, which fall to the slaughterer's axe every year, and the poor, defenceless creatures which day after day make sport under the grandiloquent title of "science" for the vivisectionist.
If Jainism and vegetarianism are negations, because they recognise that non-injuring is the highest religion and therefore cannot tolerate certain acts of destruction to be performed under their aegis, they are negations which accomplish more for the good of the human race than a multitude of other deeds.
It is here, in their universal tenderness and thought for
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com