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INTRODUCTION
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practical experience can vouch for... The Bible aptly pionts out “He that has pity upon the poor lendeth into the Lord” (Proverbs: 19, 17). . . [Since such) virtues benefit oneself too, it would also be necessary to inspire and motivate oneself continually.88 Example of Abraham Lincoln
It is said that when Abraham Lincoln was a young lawer (later the future sixteenth President of the United States) was travelling, he saw a piglet hopelessly stuck in the mud. The poor creature was struggling very hard to extricate itself from the marshy land but the more the animal struggled to get free, the more it stuck itself in the mud and was sure to die of thirst or starvation ultimately. Lincoln was wearing a new suit he hadn't owned for very long and most thoughts of compassion or rescue were not really in his priority list right then. Lincoln felt distressed or grieved by its pitiable condition, so much so that when he reached office he could not get the pig out of his head and concentrate on his work. His mind could not be at ease until he got that pig extricated from the mud. He, therefore, went to that place, got down from his carriage to help it out. When he was praised for his goodness, he remarked that what he did was merely to remove a thorn from his owrimind which would have pricked him throughtout his life, if he had not done this simple affordable act. “By showering mercy, compassion, generosity and altruism," Vijayaraghavan remarks, the person concerned does a service to himself too. (Hence mercy is] “twice blest”. 89 Thus, it signifies that one renders aid to others primarily for relieving the anguish, grief or regret (kheda) from one's own mind, thereby ensuring his own peace of mind. In this sense, compassion is also justified from the internal, self-referential point of view (nishchaya naya). Panchastikayasara (PKS)
Kundakunda himself has stated that since one's mind (naturally) gets afflicted by grief or distressed (duhkhit mana) at the sight of the thirsty, the hungry and the miserable, he offers relief to them, out of pity (kripa); then such behaviour of that person is compassion (anukampa) (PKS 137), which is the second condition (after noble or commendable attachment, (prashasta raga) generating punya (merit or virtue). The act of compassion implies the feeling of sympathy at the sight of the needy and the sufferers as well as active relief to them.
