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minds they occupy. It may be as true that the Non-killing theory in its extreme form, may have caused some minds to be averse to warlike pursuits, as that the originally simple and sensible Ahinsa may have — nay, is admitted on all hands to have — been reduced to its absurdities and immasculated forms by some of the later Jains who were already being borne along the current of foreign domination. The debasement of the principle may be the result of the degraded ages and the minds that made the ages so. We should also note that we are always apt to attach too much value to doctrines and too little to men. Then it is also important to examine what really the Jain Shastras teach. The full Ahinsa implies absolute freedom from the conditions of the world and hence the Jains who are on the higher stages of asceticism are directed to desist from killing by means that so unnecessarily meet with ridicule from unsympathetic observers. The
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