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not vitiate the real nature of self while vices do vitiate. Thus, in Jainism nonviolence represents all the virtues and violence all the vices.
The same view is also propounded in the famous Hindu work Mahabharata. It says “As the foot-prints of all smaller animals are encompassed in the footprint of an elephant. In the same way all the virtues (Dharmas) are included in Ahimsa (non-violence). Further it maintains that there is nothing higher than the virtue of nonviolence because it comprehends all the virtues' Lord Buddha in Dhammapada also remarks enmity is never appeased by enmity, but only by non-enmity- it is an eternal law. In other words it is not the violence, but non-violence that can be accepted as a universal law of human conduct.
Not only in indigenous religions, but in the Semitic religions also nonviolence is accepted as religious virtues. 'Thou shall not kill? is one of the Ten Commandments, which is prescribed by Prophet Moses. In the Holy Bible Jesus Christ also said 'Love thy enemy'. In Islam the supreme being (Allah) is called the Beneficent (Al-Rahman) and the Merciful (Al-Raheem). These injunctions of the great prophets and law givers of the world, show that it is the doctrine of non-violence which can only be a universal law of an advanced human society.
This universal acceptance of the ideal of non-violence does not mean that the ideal has been practised by all the religions of the world in the same spirit and by all the means. In Vedic religion we have the injunction such as “Consider all the creatures of the world as your friend” or “see all the beings as your ownself". Yet in practice we find that, in early Vedic religion there are sanctions for not only animal sacrifices but for the human sacrifices also. In Vedas, we have the prayers to the deities for the total destruction of the enemy and
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