Book Title: Jaina Philosophy
Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi, Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: World Jain Confederation

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Page 192
________________ MORE The Science of Eating countries. Another thing, even in the coldest climates of America it is possible to import food from California or any other country, and when people simply say that it is impossible for those people to live on any other diet it means simply that they do not wish to live on any other diet. What ground is there for supposing that a human being has the soul of an animal? It is not a question of soul at all in the selection of food. When a human being is killed, the soul is not killed; the soul is an entity which is immortal, and it is not dead, but only living in some other body. We have only destroyed the relation which has existed between soul and the body. It is higher in the human being than in the animal, but on a lower in the vegetable than in the animal. It is better since we must destroy some life in order to live, that the life should be destroyed on the lower plane, than on the higher. The same arguments just mentioned might be applied to Killing human beings, but we do not all become cannibals on account of the fact that the soul is not destroyed by the death of the body. The question of existence or non-existence of the soul has no bearing, at all, on this question if we cannot give life, what right have we to destroy it? Suppose the vegetable food is not better than the animal; man has not, therefore, a right to crush down the other beings which inhabit the universe. Another argument is that if the 'animals allowed to increase; they will become injurious, through their numbers. We know there will not be super-abundance among people who do not make a business of raising cattle for the purpose of killing them. In our country, where there is no such a thing as cattlefarming for the purpose of killing them but only for the purpose of giving milk, there has never been a superabundance of animals. Those who have lived mostly on meat, do not understand cooking vegetables. The cooking in this country is equivalent to boiling, 183 - Jain Education International For Personal & Private Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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