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THE JAINA GAZETTE is why they are not afraid of one another. But those animals, which are living in forests and caves, in holes and under rocks, in all peacefulness, begin to tremble for their lives, if they see a man approaching their quarters. People are scarcely aware of this fact. Indeed, as long as those poisonous and ferocious animals are not getting upset by such fear, they will never attack a human being. We know of thousands of people who day and night stroll about in the forests and jungles, and who have met tigers and leopards hundreds of times, and many cases of people could be quoted on whose bodies snakes and scorpions were crawling, without doing the least harm. People who allow scorpions to walk on their body, are sometimes believed to have destroyed the poison of the scorpion's sting by a magic spell. This is, of course, superstition. In fact, the scorpion has the peculiarity to sting as soon as its back, is touched and to remain passive as long as it is left in peace. This is why one can allow the scorpion to walk on one's body, without suffering any harm. In the same way, snakes and other animals do not bite as long as they are not teased or frightened.
After all, our belief that those animals injure us, and are after our lives, is quite unjustified. It is, therefore, an impardonable sin to kill, or to wish to kill, only out of selfishness, or for sport's sake, those innocent creatures which live without doing any harm to mankind, and which are unable to express their pains and sorrow.
Indeed, those people who believe these wild animals to be their enemies, are badly mistaken. Without being frightened. they never attack man, and, by-the-bye, tigers and leopards and other wild beasts always do live far from human habitations. How unjustified, to take them, who run away from us and hide themselves from man, for criminals !
Antelopes and other animals only feed on the grass of the fields and forests, by which no human being is being injured. To eat grass, means nothing but to proclaim one's peacefulness and innocence. For if a Raja, after having slaughtered thousands of men, and after having done damage of Lakhs and crores of
rupees, if he approaches his adversary with a blade of grass in Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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