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CHAPTER SEVEN
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context by an employment of the two words vrata and śīla it has been indicated that the fundamental rules pertaining to a code-ofright-conduct are just five—viz. non-violence, truthfulness etc.while the remaining rules-viz, digviramaņa etc.—are only meant to buttress those fundamental ones. And when in connection with each vrata and each śīla five failures of conduct have been enumerated that has to be understood from a moderate standpoint; for from the standpoint of brevity this number can be further reduced while from that of expansion it can be further increased.
Cāritra or right conduct means the constant development of the feeling of equanimity resulting from an absence of the mental perturbances like attachment, aversion etc. And in order to realize this fundamental nature of cāritra whatever rules of conduct like non-violence, truthfulness etc. are adopted in practical life—they too are called caritra. However, since practical life is built up in accordance with the conditions of place and time and with the level of refinement of human intellect when there is a difference in these conditions and in this level of refinement there comes about a difference in the practical arrangement of life; the result is that even while the fundamental nature of caritra is one and the same the number and nature of the rules supposed to buttress it are bound to be different under different conditions. This exactly is why the vratas and regulations prescribed for the laymen are variously described in the scriptural texts, and in future too they are bound to undergo changes. However, in the present context the author has divided the duties of a householder into thirteen types and has described the failures-of-conduct connected with each. Taken in order they are as follows:
Failures-of-conduct Connected with the Vrata of Non-violence :
(1) To check a living being from proceeding to its desired place or to bind it—that is binding.
(2) To thrash with a stick, a whip or the like that is injuring.
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