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124 THE NINE CATEGORIES OF from common objects of the countryside. It makes one realize how largely India is a country of villagers.
Each of the four sins has its own parable. In the case of anger, the least degree is likened to a line drawn on water, which soon passes away; the next to one drawn in the dust, which is stamped out and effaced in a day; the third to a crack in the dried mud at the bottom of an empty village tank, which will not disappear till the yearly rains fill the tank and cover it; and the worst of all to a fissure in a niountain side, which will remain till the end of the world.
To illustrate the four degrees of conceit, the Jaina take the stages of the growth of a tree, and remind us that the twig is pliable and easily bent again to humility; that the young branch of a tree can bend humbly if a storm force it; and that the wood of the stem may be taught humility (though with difficulty) by being oiled and heated; but conceit in the worst degree outdoes any simile taken from a tree, being as unbending as a pillar of stone.
Deceit or intrigue again leads to crookedness : in the least degree it can be straightened as one can straighten a bamboo cane; in the second degree it is like the crooked track of moisture left in the dust by the dripping from the water carrier's leather bucket; when it grows worse it is as crooked as a ram's horn; and in the worst degree of all it is like the knot in the root of the bamboo, the crookedest thing in the land.
The most subtle perhaps of all the similes is that which deals with greed, and the Jaina illustration of its effects on the soul is of special interest, for this sin is said to change the colour of the human heart. If avarice be cherished even to the least degree, it will stain the soul yellow like turmeric, but this discoloration can easily be washed off; if greed be given way to for a fortnight, the heart will be soiled like earthen cooking.pots which can only be cleansed with great labour; if one cherishes it for four months, its stain grows as difficult to efface as the marks
