AHIMSA PARMO DHARMA: Nonviolence is the Supreme Religion
Know other creatures' love for life, for they are like you. Kill them not; save their life from fear and enmity.
All creatures desire to live, not to die. Hence to kill is to sin.
A godly man does not kill. Therefore, kill not yourself, consciously or unconsciously, living organisms which move or move not, nor cause slaughter of them.
He who looketh on the creatures of the earth, big and small, as his own self, comprehendeth this immense world.
Among the careless, he who restraineth self is enlightened.
-- LORD MAHAVIRA
From the Acharanga Sutra (1:4:1)
The Arhats and Bhagavats of the past, present and future all say thus, speak thus, declare thus, explain thus:
All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain, nor treated with violence, nor abused nor tormented, nor driven away.
This is the pure, unchangeable, eternal law, which the clever ones, who understand the world, have declared: among the zealous and the not zealous, among the faithful and the not faithful, among the not cruel and the cruel, among those who have worldly weakness and those who have not, among those who like social bonds and those who do not: `that is the truth, that is so, that is proclaimed in this (creed).'
