In practice a man frequently agrees only to use twenty-six things, viz.: a towel; tooth-brush; fruit; soap; water for washing; wearing apparel; tilaka (mark on forehead); flowers; ornaments; incense; drinking-vessels (nowadays these include tea-things); sweetmeats; wheat and grain; peas; ghī; oil and milk; vegetables; dried fruit; dinner; drinking-water; pāna, sopārī, &c.; conveyances, railway trains, and horses; boots; beds, tables, chairs, &c.; anything unmentioned that turns out to be really necessary; anything that has no life. The grouping of this list is very curious, and under the last two items considerable latitude is allowed to creep in; it is only through these, for instance, that any books are permitted.
In trying to keep this vow one must be on one's guard about both food and commerce: for with regard to food, one might sin through eating unripe vegetables, or eating ripe and unripe together, or partaking of food that needs a lot of fire to cook it, or food like sugar-cane of which only a small portion is eaten and the greater part has to be thrown away; of course onions, potatoes, and all roots, being inhabited by more than one jīva, must never be eaten. In the same way one vows to be very careful, in choosing a profession, to avoid any business which involves the taking of any life, however low in the scale. One should therefore never be a blacksmith, a limeburner, or a potter, or follow any other trade in which a furnace is used, for in a fire many insect lives are destroyed; wood-cutting also often involves the accidental death of many minute lives, so a Jaina should never cut down a forest; in the same way he must never make a railway carriage, or even an ordinary cart, for railway trains sometimes run over people[1] and often run over animals and insects.
- ↑ Especially in India where railway employees will go to sleep with their heads on the rails!
