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opinion about big undertakings by your quoting the illustration of the greedy merchant. Our doctrine is also similar to your's. It is our fuin belief that if any person pierces with a pike and bakes a succulent tuber thinking it to be an adult hunian being or a gourd thinking it to be a child, then, he becomes stained with the sin of killing a living being. Also, even it any person were to pierce with a pike an adult human being thinking him to be a succulent tuber or a child thinking him to be a gourd and bake their flesh, he does not become stained with the sin of killing a living being. Even the Enlightened Buddha can partake of the flesh of an adult human being thinking him to be a succulent tuber or of a child thuking him to be a gourd, pierced by a pike and baked in this manner. According to the tenets of our Šāstra, any individual feeding daily two thousand bodhi sattva bhiksus ( Buddhist saints in the last slage before attaining to complete knowledge or Buddha-hood) with the flesh thus prepared, will acquire a mass of punya ( merit), and he will be looked upon as a high-minded identified god.
Ārdraka Muni--It is improper for true mendicants to look upon this killing affair as perfectly harmless Those who preach such acts, as well as, those who are listening to such preachings, are doing harmiul acts. One who does not know the distinction between a bulbous tuber and an adult human being is necessarily a misbeliever, as well as, a savage, otherwise, it is 10 possible not to differentiate between a bulbous tuber and an adult human being or an adult human being and a bulbous tuber. Mendicants are not expected to speak such absurd lies, as such talks are conducive to bondage of evil Karmas. O worthy men ! By these doctrines, you cannot acquire the real essence of True Religion; you cannot critically think about the consequences of good or evil acts of living beings; you cannot actually see all the objects of the Universe as if they were standing clearly before him like an āmalaka (myrobalans) fruit in his hand, and you cannot thereby spread your faire every-where.
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