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victory over it. This shows that the primitive religion and early Vedic religion also were not very much cooped with the doctrines of nonviolence. It is also true in the case of Judaism and Islam.
Though in Judaism 'thou Shall not kill' is accepted as one of the ten commandments, but for the Jews people, this injunction only means not to kill the people of their own group and faith? Similarly in Islam, the ideal of nonviolence is confined to the follower of their own faith? In it we have the sanction for Jehada. Both of these Semitic religions also have sanction for animal sacrifices. Thus, we can say that in early Vedic religion, Judaism and Islam along with the other primitive form religions of the world, the concept of non-violence is only confined to the non-violence towards the people of one's own group and faith?
In the history of Semitic religion, Christianity for the first time totally condemned the human killing. Lord Jesus Christ bestowed his compassion on all the human beings. Though in Christianity, we do not have any sanction for animal sacrifices in the name of religion, but for the sake of human food, animal killing is allowed in it. In the history of indigenous religions Jainism, Buddhism and Vaisnavism, condemned all the violence towards the animal-kingdom. Though in Buddhist countries meat-eating is a common practice yet we must be aware of the fact that this does not have any religious sanction on the part of Buddhism.
Vaisnavism prohibits the violence towards the vegetable kingdom too. It is in Jainism for the first lime that the violence towards the vegetable kingdom as well as other subtle beings of the water, earth, air and fire are totally shunned off. A Jaina monk neither can eat raw vegetables, nor can accept the meal which is prepared for him. He can drink only boiled water or water which is completely lifeless. He observes non-violence by all the nine means,
239 Jainism and its History
