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are heinous crimes. These are sankalpi himsa. In many cases, not a few but thousands and maybe millions of people are affected by their acts of swindling, cheating, deceiving, ponzi schemes, and economic violence. The societal punishment for these crimes may not be even sufficient, given the consequences of the crimes; in reality, most of the punishment just amounts to a slap on the wrist. Jains are affluent people; they are often dealing with large sums of money and financial transactions. As a result, there is always a powerful attraction not only to succumb to small greed and deceit, but in reality to enormous greed and deceit. It only takes a brave, vigilant, and determined person to escape from this disease. Unfortunately, many times, the scope of these crimes is directly proportional to the level of affluence of the doer. What is even more shocking is that most of the time, neither the doer nor the Jain Sanghs even consider such heinous acts as himsa. When such crimes are committed, not only are a large number of people cheated and deprived of their hard earned money, but also their lifelong dreams and sources of sustenance are taken away. People become destitute and sick, marriages collapse and some people even suffer heart attacks and die. In spite of this, generally neither the doer nor the Jain sanghs consider it himsa and in fact, quite many times reward the doer amply with recognition and honors by the community. The doer buys status, prestige, glory, notoriety, fame, recognition, garlands, and even jeweled crowns within the Jain sangh (householders and sadhus) with his ill-gotten himsatmak loot and booty by giving donations and ghee bolis. In this way, the Jain sangh appear to condone these acts of himsa. What a shame! Such kinds of crimes have always existed, but now, especially during the last three decades, their number and scope have increased in exponential proportions. Jains have much more scope and opportunities for succumbing to such temptations by way of their participation in commerce and industry. Since there is very little discussion or lectures by the sadhus and
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An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide
