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COMPENDIUM OF JAINISM
possessed by all Jivas alike. Absence of attachment and of any of the passions is Ahimsā. A person with a passion first injures his own self through his own self. The degree of culpability varies with the degree of intensity of intention or passion.
Ahiṁsā in the modern world has relevance to the solution of two questions: 1) Nature of food and 2) War and peace.
In its positive aspect Ahimsā means sanctity of life and universal love for all living creatures. Ahimsā is the law of human beings while violence is the law of the beasts end of the jungle: It is a matter of common experience that the food we take has as much effect on our body as on our temperament. It is argued that the vegetable food produced in the world is not sufficient for the growing population and that therefore use of non-vegetarian food is invitable. It has to be conceded that for one reason or the other many people, who are born in families in which vegetarianism is not the traditional food habit, take to meat eating. The only answer to it is that they are under a deceptive belief that that such diet is healthier and more nutritious. That this is a wrong concept of nutritive values of food can be verified by referring to any standard book on food and nutrition. In her address to the World Vegetarian Congress, Dr. Annie Besant said: “The constant use of meat in utter disregard of the sting of the conscience hardens the heart and the man becomes bereft of the feeling of mercy. The butcher uses bis knife upon bewailing mute creatures, which are images of fear and horror, without the least worry. For this reason, in the United States no butcher is permitted to sit on the jury in a murder trial; he is not permitted to take part in such a trial simply because his continual contact with slaughter is held to somewhat blunt his susceptibilities in this connection, so that all through the States no man of the trade is permitted to take part as a juryman in a trial for murder."
Such opinions can be mutiplied to any extent. Mahatma Gandhi has narrated his experience of meat eating, of the horror and the nightmare that haunted him that day and sometime
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