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travellers came to a mango-tree and consulted as to how best to obtain its fruit. The first suggested to uproot the whole tree, as the promptest expedient, the second said that it would just do to cut the crown, the third wanted to cut some taller, the fourth some smaller branches, the fifth suggested that they should merely pluck as many fruits as thay required, and the last said that the ripe fruits which the wind had blown down into the grass, were amply sufficient to appease their hunger. The six men symbolize, in the above succession, th six Lesyās or “Soul-colours” representing types of graded inner purity. It is quite characteristic of the spirit of Jainism that the representative of the white colour, i.e., the type of highest purity, advises to eat the fruits fallen into the grass, but not, as absolute and one sided negation of life would suggest, to sit down in fullest renunciation, and die of hunger.
The postulate of Self-preservation within the reasonable limits of ethical decency is clearly and directly pronounced in the Jaina Scriptures, which, in critical cases, recommend it even at the cost of renunciation or Samyama:
सव्वत्थ संजमं संजमाओ अप्पाणमेव रक्खिज्जा । मुच्चइ अइवायाओ पूणो विसोही न याविरई ।। खंजमहेउ देहो धारिज्जइ सो कओ उ तदभावे । संजमफाइनिमित्तं देहपरिपालना इट्ठा ।।
(Oghaniryukti. Stanzas 47-48.) “Before all, one should guard the rules of renunciation, but even at the cost of renunciation, one should guard one's self. For one can get rid again of the sin of transgression, if one atones for it afterwards (by austerities), and it is, as a matter of fact, not a case of Avirati (i.e., the state of not being under any Pratyākhyānas whatsoever, or the state of religious licentiousness)”. "The body is the instrument of renunciation. How could
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