honey, which cannot be enjoyed without breaking the vow of preservation of
animal life. Others limit the choice of businesses which the laity may
enter; for example, agriculture is forbidden, as it involves the tearing
up of the ground and the death of many animals, as Brâhmanism also holds.
Others have to do with mercy and charitableness, with the preserving of
inward peace, or with the necessity of neither clinging too much to life
and its joys nor longing for death as the end of suffering. To the laity,
however, voluntary starvation is also recommended as meritorious. These
directions (as might be expected from the likeness of the circumstances)
resemble in many points the Buddhist directions for the laity, and indeed
are often identical with regard to the language used. Much is however
specially in accordance with Brâhmanic doctrines. [Footnote: The
_Upâsakadaśâ Sûtra_ treats of the right life of the laity,
Hoernle, pp. 11-37 (Bibl. Ind.), and Hemachandra, _Yogasûtra_,
Prakâsa ii and iii; Windisch, _Zeitschrift der Deutsch Morg. Ges._
Bd. XXVIII, pp. 226-246. Both scholars have pointed out in the notes to
their translations, the relationship between the precepts and terms, of
the Jainas and Buddhists. The Jainas have borrowed a large number of rules
directly from the law books of the Brâhmaṇs. The occupations forbidden
to the Jaina laity are almost all those forbidden by the Brâhmanic law to
the Brâhmaṇ, who in time of need lives like a Vaīśya.
Hemachandra, _Yogaśâstra_, III, 98—112 and _Upâsakadaśâ
Sûtra_, pp. 29-30, may be compared with Manu, X, 83-89, XI, 64 and 65,
and the parallel passages quoted in the synopsis to my translation
(_S.B.E._ Vol. XXV).] In practical life Jainism makes of its laity
earnest men who exhibit a stronger trait of resignation than other Indians
and excel in an exceptional willingness to sacrifice anything for their
religion. It makes them also fanatics for the protection of animal life.
Wherever they gain influence, there is an end of bloody sacrifices and of
slaughtering and killing the larger animals.