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Each booklet has 360 pouches. One booklet is used to make 30,000 varak pieces much less than the daily supply of a single large mithai shop.
About 12,500 animals are killed for one kg of varakh. Every year, 30,000 kilograms of varakh (30 tons) are eaten on mithai. 25 million booklets are made by varak companies that keep their slaughterhouse connection secret. Now you can easily calculate hwo many animals are killed each year just for the varak. But the truth is that not only is this industry killing animals furiously, much of the animal tissue that the booklet is made of remains in the varak.
Many Jains know in their heart that varak is non-vegetarian. But they still use these dreadful items of mass destruction to decorate the idols of Jain tirthankars. How amazing that the idols of those that preached and practiced strict non-violence to all creatures should now be covered with slaughterhousederived silver foils. Jains (not all) do buy and use varask. Some try to bluff themselves by saying that the varak is machinemade, and no animal skin is used in its manufacture which most probably is not true. Is this practice any different than still prevalent practice of sacrifice (killing) of animals for worship and religious rituals in some Hindu temples which happens even today? Bhagwan Mahavir tirelessly worked to stop this animal sacrifice practice but his followers resorted to the same. What a mockery!
In their thorough investigation, Beauty Without Cruelty has done a thorough investigation and found that there is not a single machine-made piece of varak in India, or anywhere in the world.
On the internet, there are letters, including, for example, one from a person in Jalandhar claiming that he has a company which has "fully automatic machines manufactured with German collaboration to beat silver pieces in between a special Indian manufactured paper in a hygienic and controlled atmosphere run round the clock by qualified
An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide
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