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Ahimsa it is not possible to seek and find Truth. Ahimsa and Truth are so intertwined that it is impossible to disentangle and separate them.... Ahimsa is the means; Truth is the end. Means to be means must always be within our reach, and so Ahimsa is our supreme duty."
Gandhi learned practical Ahimsa from his parents as given in his childhood memoirs:
'One day Gandhi saw an insect biting his mother's foot. He shouted and the mother asked him to keep quiet and with a slight jerk to her foot allowed the insect to go away. On seeing this, Gandhi asked his mother as to why she did not kill it. The mother replied 'Son! It also has the right to live."
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'Gandhi made a clean confession of stealing in writing to his bedridden father. Gandhi did not dare to face his father and so peeped through the door to see his father's reaction. He summarised this incidence as, 'He (father) read it through and pearl drops trickled down his cheeks wetting the paper. For a moment he closed his eyes in thought and then tore up the note. He had sat up to read it. He again lay down. I also cried and could see my father's agony.........For me this was an object lesson in Ahimsa (nonviolence). This I could read in it nothing more than a father's love, but today I know that it was pure Ahimsa'.88
Both these incidences show deep Jain impact of Ahimsa as discussed earlier. AHIMSA, being the inherent nature of pure soul (expressed as even Bhagwai), forms the basis of all ethicalspiritual activities. In Jainism Ahimsa is even equated to God. The doctrinal and subtlest definition of Ahimsa in the first Jain canon Acharanga, and as a social practice in 11th canon in Prashna Vyakaran Sutra and the basis of conduct Purusharthasiddhi-upaya by Amritchandra, and several other Jain holy texts substantiate the claim of Jains as their religion being Ahimsa centric primarily. A number of such Jain books occupied a
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