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Every year millions of animals are killed and eaten in name of religion and deities. For business and livelihood hundreds of thousand slaughterhouses and abattoirs are running and millions of birds and animals are butchered. Millions of people are engaged in these and allied trades like selling meat, processing and exporting meat, preparing non-vegetarian delicacies, manufacturing and marketing animal based products such as things made of leather, bone, horn, gut, etc. The number of people who eat meat or use animal products is in billions.
Animals and birds are killed for leather. Shoes, suitcases, purses, covers for instruments, balls, toys and many other things are made of calf-leather, snake-hide, crocodile-hide, etc. Purses are made of rabbit pelt. Stuffed fox, jackal, wolf, etc. are used for decoration and deerskin and tiger-skin are used as mattresses. There are also multifarious uses for horns, tallow, blood, guts, and bones of various animals.
Monkeys, mice, dogs, rabbits and many other creatures are also used for scientific and medical experiments. In the same way frogs, beetles, worms, etc. are also used in laboratories. There are also medicinal uses of some things of animal origin.
Many people hunt and kill birds and animals as a sport or for entertainment.
Many creatures are killed out of fear on pretext of self-defense. These include snake, scorpion, louse, worm, termite, housefly, mosquito, bed bug, lion, leopard, wolf, cheetah, etc. Silk-worm are killed for cloth, and birds, mother-of-pearl, shells, coral, and many other such beings are killed for decorative and ornamental uses.
Thus there are numerous reasons for violence. Moreover, in the modern technological world numerous killing machines and implements such as bombs, chemicals, missiles, rockets, satellites, aeroplanes, submarines, tanks, and ships have been made to destroy opposition in territorial and financial ambitions.
SOME MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT AHIMSĀ
Ahimsā has been accepted as the loftiest religion. That appears to be the reason that many misconceptions regarding ahimsa prevail. It is
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