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Religion, Practice and Science of Non-Violence
and begged his living. Each person was to live and abide by his duties, if he expected praise and reward in this world and the next.
The importance of observing a virtuous life was even more strictly enjoined upon in this period, yet the definition of a virtue, as for example of ahimsā, differed from caste to caste and from one stage of life to the next.
The Mahābhārata, gives the greatest importance to the observance of ahimsā:
Ahimsā paramo dharma ahimsā paramam tapam ahimsa parmam satyam tato dharmah pravartate. Ahimsā is the highest duty, it is again the highest penance It is also the highest truth from which all duty proceed. Neither with eye nor with mind nor with voice
Should one injure another. One should not disparage another,
Nor speak ill of another. One should not hurt any living thing.
But one should be always of kindly conduct. Even when one is angered, one should speak pleasantly;
And when insulted, answer with a blessing.” That man who, renouncing all pride, humbly attends upon
And serves them who are venerable for age, Who is imbued with learning, and shorn of lust,
Who regards all creatures equally with an eye of love Who is righteous in his acts, and who is shoin
Of the desire of inflicting any kind of injury That truly respectable man is adored in this world.3 Abstention from injury to all creatures
In thought, word and deed. Not for the sake of fruit or reward
Does he injure any creature Or treat any one with hostility.5
Mahābhārata, Anuśasana Parva, 115, 25. 2 Ibid, 12.278,4,5,6. 3 Ibid, 10, 537, 538 4 Ibid, 12, 162, 21. 5 Ibid, 12.268, 31.
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