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There is greater sin in killing a serpent or a tiger in a human form than in killing a real serpent. We kill a tiger out of fear, not in anger. If there really is a Dharmaraja who judges our sins and good deeds, he will perhaps have pity on the person who may have killed a tiger and forgive him, because he will have only followed the natural instinct of the beast in him. One beast will have killed another. But behind the murder of a human being, there is the spirit of revenge and anger, of pride and hypocrisy. - - -
I tell Jains, and others too, that compassion does not merely mean not killing bugs, ants and other insects, though certainly they should not be killed. It also means that no soul born as a human being must be cheated. And yet what else do the businessmen do? If any Jain would show his account books to me, I would immediately prove that he was no Jain. How is the cloth, which we trade, produced? Dealers ought to consider whether the manufacture of cloth is not tainted, whether it is not true that animal fat is used in sizing cloth. It must be, besides, repugnant to businessmen to charge exorbitant rates of interest. This is not worthily done by a Jain. Dealers may reasonably add to the cost of an article one pice or two pice for their services. But why is all this cunning haggling and lying? And the interest which is charged for money lent is so cruelly high that it kills the debtor. Wherever I go, I hear complaints against Vanias, both Jains and Vaishnavas. - - -
We must cease to be unscrupulous Vanias and become Kshatriyas. The Vaisya's dharma does not mean doing no manual work, no ploughing, no heroism and no consideration for right and wrong. The true Vaisya, rather, shows himself heroic in his generosity and discrimination in his business; he follows the Brahmin's dharma, too, by exercising his discrimination and deciding that he may not sell liquor or fish, that he may deal only in pure khadi. We shall fall into sin if others slave for us and we merely lend money and earn interest. At least by way of yajna, we should do some bodily labour every day.
Primarily, the Vania's sphere is business, but he must also possess the qualities of the other castes. - - - But what do we find many Vanias doing? Most of them have engaged North Indians and Pathans as
Pg.304 | Gandhi & Jainism
