Book Title: Selected Speeches of V R Gandhi
Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Vallabhsuri Smarak Nidhi Godiji Jain Derasar Mumbai

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Page 114
________________ on the Sacred Hill of Sammet Shikar in Bihar. An Englishman called Boddam took a lease of a portion of the Hill from the Rajah of Palgunje and started construction of a factory for slaughtering pigs and making tallow out of them. This caused great resentment in the minds of the Jainas all over India. It was a great blow for the Jainas, as it violated the very first principle of Ahimsā, i.e., non-violence, as the factory erected on the Hill, every inch of which is made sacred by the twenty Tirthankaras, who achieved Nirvāṇa (liberation) there. Jainas had made efforts to remove the factory and had filed a suit in the Subordinate Judge's Court in Bihar; but in the trial Court, they failed. Then an appeal was filed from the Judgment of the trial Court in the High Court of Calcutta. Shri Virchand was entrusted with this task. He went to Calcutta and stayed there for the work of this appeal. It is said that he learnt the Bengali language to correctly translate various relevant documents written in the Bengali language and script. Shri Virchand's great zeal and untiring efforts were largely responsible for winning the appeal and removing the tallow factory from the Hill. This case subsequently came to be known as a Piggery Case. The whole Hill and every inch of it, every stone and pebble, is regarded by the Jainas as sacred and an object of worship. The foreign British rulers of our country recognised the sacredness of the Hill and respected the feelings and religious sentiments of the Jainas then, and the piggery factory was removed. But it is a strange irony of fate that our own Government in 100 Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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