Historical Facts About Jainism

Author(s): Lala Lajpatrai
Publisher: Jain Associations of India Mumbai

Page 33

INFLUENCE OF AHIMSA. “Our Shashtras seem to teach that a man who really practises Ahimsa in its fulness has the world at his feet; he so affects his surroundings that even the snakes and venomous reptiles do him no harm. This is said to have been the experience of St. Francis of Assisi.
AIIIMSA GREATEST COURAGE. "Ahimsa requires deliberate self-suffering. 11ot a deliberate injuring of the supposedd wrongdoer. In its positive form, Alinisa means the largest love, the greatest charity.................." This active Ahimsa necessarily includes truth and fearlessness. A man cannot (leceive the loved one ; he does not fear or frighten zin or her. T2TCH (gift of life! is the greatest of all gifts. A man who gives it in reality, (lisarnis all hostility. He las paved the way for an ionourable understanding. An none who is liimself subject to fear can bestow that gift. He must therefore be himse!f fearless. "A man cannot then practise Ahimsa and be a coward at the same time.” The practice of Alinsa calis forth the greatest courage. It is the most weliery of soldier's virtues.
LEAR OF DEATH. "If we are unmanly to-day, we are so. 110t because we do not know how to strike, but be
181253 T MAMAKADONNA ÜTeen
TUTE OF CULTURI