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1905 ] Jains and the Panjab University.
229 lac, ivory, hides and skins. Their religious teachers never put on shoes. Most of the laymen also go barefooted because the demand for shoes and their use helps in the destruction of life. Leather shoes can not, as a rule be taken into temples and other sacred places. The Shatrunjaya Hill is held in high respect as many of our sages obtained Nirvana from here. When we ascend the hill, we leave our leather shoes behind us and we t'annot naturally be expected to bear the infringement of this rule by others.
Why then, we ask, did Mr. Lambert of the Shatrunjaya Hill notoriety and his friends, dare to come within shot of approbrium by unheeding the mandates of the Inspector of the Hill temples and going with walking shoes in the Tunks in contradiction to long established custom ; and how in face of the strong support given to it in its leader, the Advocate of India took up the cause of Mr. Lambert and tried to prove him not guilty when he avowedly committed the sin of defying the sacred law of the Jains in their very possessions? But Mr. Lambert's was not the only case which might be said to be due to ignorance. Prince Ranjit Singh, the world renowned cricketer followed suit and Dr. Sir Bhalchandra of Bombay overtopped them all. May we ask these gentlemen and others of their type to retire in a solitary place, concentrate their minds for a short time, meditate upon the religious principles of che Jains and bewail upon the fully they, have committed either on account of ignorance or through the malicious instigations of others. They will thereby be doubly profitted ; for by learning how to respect the religious institutions of the Jains they will learn how to revere their own institutions. We may, by the bye, ask the Thakur of Palitana to be more cautious in his relations with the Jains and to learn to preserve intact the religious institutions of the Jains in the same way as he does those of the Hindoos. Time has now come for the Thakur to be one with us and win the hearts of fifteen lacs of soulsthe richest in India-to his side. We finish by saying that the force of custom and sacred law of society ought to be revered by every true lover of peace and the sacred Shatrunjaya Hill ought never to be defiled by such infringements as those which we have the occasion so painfully to note.
Jains and the Panjab University. The following letter having been addressed by the General Secretary of the Jain Swetamber Conference to the Director of Public Instruction, Punjab, along with the reply received from the Registrar of the Punjab University is published for general information:
