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APPENDIX B.
The very first objection taken is that the custom of one sect of Jainas may, not prevail in another sect. In connec tion with this, reference was made to Bachebi v. Makhanlal (I. L. R., 3 All 55). This was a case of Bindala Jainas of Mainpuri. That sect, we are told in the judgment at page 59, "is small in numbers and confined to the districts of Mainpuri, Etah and Farrukhabad." It was held in that case that the evidence produced was inadequate to establish the rights, claimed for the widow, of making an unlimited gift of ancestral property inherited from her husband. The argument adduced by the learned pleader for the plaintiff cuts both ways. He says that the custom of one sect may not prevail in another sect of the Jainas. If this is so, the case in L. L. R 3 All, page 55, has no application to the present case at all, the parties in this case being Porwada and in 3 All. Bindala Jainas. But his argument is untenable. All the Jainas are governed by one law. The law books to which they owe and profess allegiance are the same. The spiritual precepts which form the backbone of their moral and mundane conduct spring from the same theological and metaphysical beliefs and considerations.
A very good explanation of the case in point can be given. The Bindala Jainas, confined as they are reported to have been to 3 small districts of upper India, may not have been in that frequent and extensive touch with their confreres elsewhere which would have made them coguisant of the wider modes of life of Jainas elsewhere. As a fact, the Districts to which the Bindala Jainas are alloted, are by no means the most important centres of Jainas or Jainism. Delhi in the Punjab, Saharanpur, Meerut Muttra and Benares in the U. P., Arrah, Bhagalpur, Chappra and Patna in Bihar, Calcutta and Murshidabad in Bengal, and Bombay, Surat and Ahmedabad in Bombay Presidency, are the modern strongholds
