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the sake of animals brought to be served as food for his wedding party.
A major objection to vegetarianism is that there is life and soul in every kind of food that we consume, and eating any kind of food is clearly an interference with the course of life. Therefore, according to this point of view, there is no difference between interfering with the vegetable kingdom and the animal kingdom for the sake of obtaining food. However, the proponents of this view fail to see that there is world of difference between the two cases. The difference relates to the sensitivity to pain, the possibility of compensation and degree of interference. When an innocent animal is slaughtered, man definitely causes pain and agony by putting an end to life. But in the case of plants and trees we survive by nature's surpluses i.e. what the plants and trees give themselves and not eating the source by killing it. Using animals for food has to be discouraged because we have no right to take away that which we cannot give.
Vegetarian diet can be seen as another example of practicing social non-violence which takes the benefit not only to us vegetarians but to others as well (like the animal kingdom, ecology, economics and in the reduction of cruel activities rampant in the society). In recent times we find the number of people switching over to vegetarian and even vegan diet is exponentially on the rise and people in western world who are adopting this as matter of educated and well informed choice. Jain diet not only propagates vegetarianism but also eating a balanced wholesome healthy food in right quantity and at right times. So Jainism puts a lot of emphasis on fasting, eating less than normal, giving up a different taste (like oils and fats, sugar, salt, greens etc) every day, not eating after sunset etc.
Practicing vegetarianism can play havoc to terrorism, insecurity, intolerance, environmental degradation etc which have long term adverse impact on our very existence as humans.
Pg.248 Gandhi & Jainism
