Book Title: Tulsi Prajna 2006 07
Author(s): Shanta Jain, Jagatram Bhattacharya
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

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Page 115
________________ children and even generations to come and cause or promote cancer. According to an WHO estimate about 7,50,000 people are poisoned by pesticides every year. 32 10. Keśa Vānijya :- (Trade of animals like carmari cows, horses, elephants as well as wool etc.) This is explained as trade in creatures that have hair. This trade causes a huge amount of violence and cruel behaviour with the animals that possess hair. Animal hair is used in the manufacture of shaving brushes; hair brushes, boot-polish brushes, eye lines etc are made from specially playful squirrel and from the hog. Jacket with fur lining bags, caps etc are made by killing beautiful hair holder animals. Maneka writes in her book 'Head and Tails' that 'for preparation of self curly kalakul hat from lamb hair, the mother, the ewe, is hit over a hundred times with an iron rod to induce premature birth. The lamb is then skinned alive in front of her eyes so that its fur remains soft and curly.33 So Lord Mahavira possessed high level of intuition power in the restriction of violent professions for meeting the artificial needs of common man. In Daśvaikālika sūtra, Lord Mahavira preached, life is dear to all the creatures, nobody wants to die, so a man of complete restrain should never indulge in such violence.34 For the householders Mahavira preached anarthadanda vratai.e. unnecessary violence is restrained. So entire Jain community is aloof from such keśa and viṣa väṇijya etc. which are severe pollutants. 11. Yantra pilana karma: This is deemed to be the operation of mills and presses for crushing sugarcane and expressing oil from sesamum seed, mustard seed and castor oil beans as well as the 'crushing' of water in norias. The destruction of life thereby provoked is so great that a popular saying (Laukika) affirms that an oil-press is as evil as ten slaughter houses.35 Lord Mahavira preached the four reasons for taking birth in the hell. Among them the first reason is 'Mahaarambha'i.e. huge (high violence) violence. Yantra pilana trade is cause of Mahaarambha as per Jaina karma theory. So Mahavira preached to refrain from such professions. Gandhiji also supported always small scale industries (kutir udyog, charkha, khadhi, svadeshi etc) and was against the establishment of large scale industries because it results in the mass production of goods by few individuals, with unequal distribution and prosperity for few but poverty for the majority. Schumaker in his book - "Small is beautiful” supports the same idea of Gandhi. But the industrial revolution of the 18th century in Europe had a global impact and with the advancement in 110 Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only तुलसी प्रज्ञा अंक 132-133 www.jainelibrary.org

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