________________
222
Dr. Charlotte Krause : Her Life & Literature
[ 65 ] In a heart in which the Goddess Non-injury has taken her domicile, the whole host of virtues, such as chastity, unselfishness, contentment, liberality, meditation, austerity and prayer soon manifest themselves.
[ 66 ) Knowledge, meditation, the morning and evening devotions, and other religious actions are necessary to form a fence, as it were, around the useful garden 'Non-injury', in order to protect it duly.
[ 67 ] The root of piety is compassion. Where there is injury, there cannot be compassion, and thus, there cannot be piety either.
[68] To commit injury and afterwards atone for it, is just like soiling one's feet with mud and then washing them.
( 69 ) No object is so dear to a creature as its life. Thus there can be not greater sin than to take it away, in order to fatten one's own body by that of the poor killed thing.
[ 70 ] Bear in mind that in feeling happiness and pain, another's self is just like thy own : therefore love others even as thou lovest thyself.
[ 71 ] In this world, which is so full of fears, only he can live fearlessly, who practises compassion towards all creatures.
[ 72 ] No reasoning can justify the cruelty which man displays when destroying the whole existence of another creature for the sake of a momentary gratification of his desires.
[ 73 ) The faculty of doing important work grows in the measure in which one preserves one's chastity.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org