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Prohibition and Indian Culture
29
Ācārya Hemacandra, the prominent Jajna Saint of Gujarat, has clearly mentioned that the liquor is not to be drunk even by a layman, 21 Here we have clear evidence to the fact that in his times it was a rule for layman not to use the spirited drinks and this rule is followed by the later generation upto this time.
Ācārya Hemacandra mentions in his Yogaśāstra some of the vices resulting from the intoxicating drinks22
"Even the inost skillful person loses his intellect; the drunkard does not make difference between his wife and his mother; he loses the discriminative power and as a result he considers bis master as servant and a servant as his master; a drunkard falls down on the earth and rolls and dogs discharge urine in his mouth; goes out of his senses and lie down naked in the street; gives out his secrets unconsciously; his fame, beauty, intelligence, and the wealth are removed from bim; he dances as if caught by the devil, cries like an anguished, rolls on earth like a person having inflammatory fever, the spirited drinks are like poison and so they make the body unsteady, the senses tired and the soul unconscious; discrimination, restraint, knowledge, truth, purity, compassion, tolerance, and such other qualities are burnt up like the grass due to the intoxicating drinks. The liquor is the cause of the vices and all types of difficulties, so it is better to avoid it.”
After Hemacandra there were many Jaina monks who followed him in eradicating the evil from the society.
Especially in Gujarat we must here remember the Swaminācāyaṇa and his followers whose efforts for prohibition are remarkable. The Swaminārāyana will be remembered for his effects in the lower strata of the society for prohibition,
21. Yogasastra 4.8 ff. 22. lbid, 4.8 ff.
