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The Mahāviracharita adds that pigeon racing and cook-fighting were stopped. Kumārapāla insisted upon the care of all living creatures, whether they lived in water, on the land or in the air. Even a man of the lowest birth was not allowed to kill bugs, lice and the like.??
27 Mahaviracharita, XII, 65-74 It is a mistake to suppose that injury to living creatures was forbidden for certain days in the year. Mr. Shastri D. K. quotes the Kiradu inscription in which Ālhanadeva had forbidden injury to living creatures for six days in a month. The inscription bears the date S. 1209, so its evidence cannot be used to decide for how many days injury to living beings was forbidden, because Kumarapāla's contemporary Yagahpāla clearly states that injury to living creatures was forbidden for a period of twelve years ( 14 years according to Merutunga ). Thus from the Mohardjaparājaya it is clear that injury to living creatures was forbidden in V. S. 1216. It is, therefore, & mistake to expect a reference to an event that had occurred in V. S. 1216 in an inscription of V. S. 1209.
On the other hand, it is quite probable, as the Kiradu inscription of V. S. 1209 says that injury to living creatures was forbidden for & few days in a month, in the beginning, and by V. S. 1216, complete injury to living beings was forbidden throughout the
year. Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat www.umaragyanbhandar.com
