Jainism in Gujarat

Author(s): Chimanlal Bhailal Sheth
Publisher: Godiji Jain Temple Mumbai

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days and forbade the taking of life throughout the kingdom. The offerings of living animals to gods were also stopped 25
That Kumarapala, realising like Akbar under Jain influence that it is not meet that man should make his stomach the grave of animals, forbade the destruction of life in his kingdom, is proved by other evidence also. According to the Dryas'raya, king Kumārapāla seeing & man taking four or five half-dead goats to a butcher, felt much that the people in his kingdom killed beasts, and so forbade the taking of life in his kingdom. Animal sacrifices were stopped. As the result of tbis edict, the ascetics in Pali land (Marwad ) did not get the skin of the deer to use as & covering, and the people of Panchaladeśa, though formerly great destroyers of life, were prevented from taking life.
We, therefore, come to the conclusion that Kumărapala and Hemachandra must have met in the reign of Jayasimha before Kumarapala was forced to wander to save his life.
The Prabandhas relate that Hemasün had helped Kumarapala in his days of adversity and forecast that he would be a king of Gujarat,
(26) Somaprabha, Kumārapalapratıbodha, p. ll. 40-41.