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anybody. This is non-violence. This is equality...
Jain scriptures hold forth emphatically on all life being sacred and sacrosanct - right down to a tiny ant or a humble worm or a miniscule living organism:
"In happiness or suffering, in joy or grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self. We should, therefore, refrain from inflicting upon others such injury as would be undesirable or unbearable if inflicted upon ourselves. We must endeavour to develop equanimity towards all living beings and elements of nature in this universe."
Jain religion takes an integrated view of Nature, human beings and all other living creatures. Indeed if this view had been sustained by human beings the world over while exploiting nature and other living creatures, we could have avoided the acute ecological crisis that we face now. Human encroachment of forests has been disastrous. As per FAO studies, in the Asia and Pacific Region alone 2 million hectares of forests are being lost annually, and as high as 5 million hectares of forestland has disappeared on account of commercial logging. World Resources Institute of New York has estimated that deforestation accounts for a third of the Carbon Dioxide being released into the atmosphere, thereby making it the single largest contributor to the global warming phenomenon. A Harvard Biologist has estimated that the chopping down of tropical forests leads to at least 50,000 invertebrate species every year (about 140 every day) facing extinction.
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Pollution of rivers, lakes and oceans has upset the natural balance. Fourteen major river systems in India have become giant sewers for the country's urban population. Depletion of ozone layer threatens global warming and climate change. Environmental degradation, if not checked, can create a paradoxical situation in which human beings would be moving towards their own extinction. An average rise of one to two degrees of earth's temperature in 25 years has been predicted and in some regions, it may even be as high as six degrees. This may
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Ahimsa: The Ultimate Winner ★ (168)
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