________________
Jains use and trade in real silk and silk products extensively. There are thousands of silk saree shops in India owned by Jains. Not only silk is used by ladies (sarees and related body wear), by men (kurtas, jackets, coats, scarves, neck ties), in home furnishings (for curtains, draperies, carpets and rugs), but also in temples for poojas as some people consider it purer than cotton dhotis and sarees. The complete process of silk making is purely of himsa. Silk is nothing but practically the skin of millions of two- to three-sensed silk worms (these are specially reared in factories and farms), which are boiled alive in hot water to extract silk thread. My brothers and sisters, I am not kidding. I personally have toured several silk factories and seen the rearing of silk worms and also witnessed all this killing with my own eyes. There are a significant number of Jains who either don't believe or don't want to believe that silk comes from the dead bodies of silk worms. This is similar to many meat eaters who don't connect that meat comes by killing live animals. In the case of silk, one should take a tour of a silk factory. I have done that. This will be an eye opener. One can search at any of the websites such as Google to know where silk comes from. Below is information from one such search from a web site:
Silk is the material produced by the silk worm to make its cocoon. While there are several types of silkworm, it's the mulberry silk worm that is used to make commercial silk.
They're called mulberry silk worms because they feed off mulberry leaves. The mulberry silkworms yield the most quantity of silk. Shortly before the silkworm is going to eat its way through the silk of the cocoon, the worm is killed so the cocoon can be un-raveled into a single thread. Silkworms produce silk when they grow from worms, into their adult stage: a moth. In between these stages, the silkworm spins a single thread of silk around
An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide
157
