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THE JAINA GAZETTE
MADRAS:
VOL. XXVI )
No. 4
WHOLE No. 398
APRIL 1930.
Jainism and Vegetarianism.
BY
(Miss) Irene Cook. IT is often thought, and perhaps as frequently said by the 1 uninitiated, that Jainism and vegetarianism find a common basis in qualities that are so completely negative as to have no contact with the realities of life, or at least that can give no warm, impelling direction to human frailties and desires and lead them in the end along the golden path of virtuous attainment. It might as truly be said because one forbids another to drink from a poisoned well that the restriction is one which limits power and denies experience. In a sense which is both crude and lacking in vision, this is indeed true; but the power and experience if permitted and indulged result at once in a final and permanent deprivation of further power and experience.
The broad facts of human experience lead us irresistably to the conclusion that viewed from the completely selfish angle of comfort and self-preservation, there are indubitably certain things which should be forbidden to us and the uso and enjoyment of which we must necessarily avoid. Our purpose may be tbe maintenance of health, the provision of food and the so-called necessaries of life, the education of the mind, or the regulation of our relationships with other persons; the means taken to ensure the attainment of these objects must entail a minimum sacrifice and may indeed
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Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
