Jainism

Author(s): Herbert Warren
Publisher: Divine Knowledge Society

Page 96

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only half the living beings, and can therefore be represented by the figure 8.
JAINISM
Now, taking moving living beings, how much protection can the layman give to these? There is destroying them with determined intention, where he thinks, "I want to kill them, and I am killing them." There is killing them in household and personal matters, cooking, digging, foundations, etc., etc. The layman cannot refrain from the latter kind, and so, again, the protection he can afford to living being is reduced to 4.
How much can he avoid killing moving living beings with determined intention? These may be either innocent or guilty, so far as the layman's interests are concerned. He cannot say he will not kill the guilty ones. A lion, if he attacks you, is guilty; so is a burglar. Again, the figure is reduced to 2.
Therefore, disregarding the guilty, we must consider only the innocent. Men, when they kill innocent living beings, intentionally do so, either without a necessary cause, or else for a special necessary cause. The layman cannot undertake to refrain from the intentional killing of innocent beings, when there is a necessary cause for doing it. So, again, the figure is halved, and the protec tion which a layman can undertake to afford to life is, in comparison with that afforded by the monk, as 1 is to 16.
The layman, then, can undertake to refrain from intentionally killing innocent moving living beings, when he has no necessary cause for killing them. So the first vow of the layman would be: I shall not without a necesFor Private & Personal Use Only