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Jaina Acāra : Siddhanta aura Swarūpa
(ii) To twist facts and present them in a modified form.
Truth requires no frills. The very same thing may be spoken in a pleasant or unpleasant manner. The better thing is not unnecessarily to displease others.
It is not good to say things spitefully. You may not reveal the truth to serve your selfish ends. This you may do also to harm others which prompts you to present a distorted version in a convincing manner. Impure thoughts and inimical actions also come under this head. The householder consciously abstains from what the society takes as false or which hurts others, or which is punishable by law and censurable by society. He does not tell a palpable lie. Such attitude does not come in the way of mundane dealings. The subtle falsehood is that which may kill one-sensed beings or which a householder does with a view to making use of earth, water, fire, air and vegetation. Those who are habituated to telling lies degrade themselves irretrievably. Upāsakadasānga has given five kinds of gross lies. The first concerns itself with girls. By implication it concerns all. Women, however, have a special status in society. It is they who give birth also to great and good men. If a girl, handsome and born in a decent family, is given out as plain, of a low descent and even maimed, it is a clear distortion of facts. Similar is the case when you proclaim a plain girl as exceptionally beautiful. The other way is to say falsely that the girl hails from that and not this town. Likewise is to make a wrong statement with regard to her date of birth. Similar is the case when you present a foolish girl as intelligent and vice versa. The householder must avoid such gross lies and not be swayed by anger, pride, avarice and selfishness.
The second palpable falsehood is concerned with cows,which by implication, extends to all animals. The Vedas, the Bauddhas and Jainas regard the cow as sacred. People may say untrue things about a cow with reference to her giving milk, or coming from a particular province or belonging to a special breed, or a simple one as crooked and vice versa.
The next is with regard to land. A householder does not claim the land belonging to another person. It is from land that you have things both living and non-living. Trees, fruits and the like possess life whereas other products of earth as gold, silver, copper, mica, gems etc. are without life. The householder makes no wrong statement concerning land and its ramifications.
The other way is concerned with trust, both in cash and kind. An avaricious money-lender may try to misappropriate the deposit or to say that it was less than claimed by the debtor. Manu says that such cases are of theft and punishable by law. The Jainas, however, take it under falsity, because all false claims are based on untrue statements. The good one must not be given out as bad or the new one as old. For whatever reason, untruth should not be resorted to concerning trust. The very word 'trust' begets confidence. When betrayed, it becomes distrust.
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