Notes on Modern Jainism

Author(s): Mrs Sinclair Stevenson
Publisher: Oxford

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MODERN JAINISM.
Gujarat in 1900* has left an indelible stain on a reputation already tarnished by their apathy regarding infanticide.
The practice of female infanticide was, before the British Government intervened to put an end to it, almost universal amongst certain Rajput tribes in Western India ; and the Jaina never attempted to save the countless children thus done to death. Concerning this the Government Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency says with justifiable indignation :“ Brahmaus who would not destroy the most hurtful reptile, and Jains, who cover their mouths that they may not injure the smallest insect, looked on with apathy from generation to generation, never raising their voice in behalf of the helpless creatures, who, year after year, were sacrificed at the shrine of superstition and pride." I
ix. Papa. The ninth category deals with sin (Pāpa 414), of which, according to the Jaina, there are eighteen kinds. The
greatest of all sins is the destruction of life Eighteen kinds (Prānātināta uleulanin), and this carries of Sin.
with it the heaviest punishment; the guilt increases in accordance with the number of " senses" the thing injured possesses (so that the greatest guilt is incurred by killing a man), and also in accordance with the motive from which the action was done. Mrişāvāda (44191€), or telling lies, is also forbidden, but the truth should be spoken pleasantly. Adattādāna (24€ Tela), or
* The exaggerated value Jaina place on animal rather than human life was clearly shewn in the famine. In more than one town they were seen to drive away starving little children from picking up
scattered grains of corn, 80 that pigeons might get a full meal. + Bombay Gazetteer, vol. viii. p. 112.