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is considered to be an undoubted religious merit. And it explains, last but not least, the unspeakable pleasure and devotion with which a Jaina family sees approaching towards their door the saintly monk or nun, who will enter with the greeting of “Dharmalābha”, or a similar formula, and will allow the lord or lady of the house to put a small quantity of eatables into their bowl, provided that this action includes no direct or indirect injury to anybody, and that everything is in strictest accordance with the rules of monastic conduct and decency.
Now. I have been asked several times whether it is true that the Jainas, as alleged, carry the virtue of charity so far as to course, now and then, some poor wretch, (whom they pay off) to yield his body as a pasture-ground for lice and fleas and other amiable creatures, and let them have their fill. According to my firm conviction, this horrible allegation must be a bold invention. And if it is perhaps, against all probability, true that some illinformed fanatic did such a thing, then he would have acted in straight opposition to the tenets of Jainism : for to make a being so highly developed as a human soul, suffer in such a degrading way, in the name of the humanest of all religions, would clearly fall under the heading of Himsā, of worst and meanest injury, and would, besides, mean a downwright insult to religion in general.
Resuming, one can say that the social conduct prescribed by Jainism is characterized by the four attitudes “Maitri", “Pramoda”, “Kārunya” and “Madhyasthya”, which have been grouped together in the following stanzas :
मा कार्षीत् कोऽपि पापानि मा च भूत कोऽपि दुःखितः । मुच्यतां जगदप्येषा मतिमैत्री निगद्यते ।। अपास्ताशेषदोषाणां वस्तुतत्त्वावलोकिनाम् । गुणेषु पक्षपातो यः स प्रमोदः प्रकीर्तितः ।। दीनेष्वार्तेषु भीतेषु याचमानेषु जीवितम् । प्रतीकारपरा बुद्धिः कारुण्यमभिधीयते ।।
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