If a novice does anything wrong, he should never deny it: if he has not done it he should say, “I have not done it.” A lie must never be told—“not even in jest or in anger.” Were there nothing else of good in Jaina discipline this devotion to truth would place it high on mankind’s mountain. [Illustration: _Photo in_ _India Museum._ COLOSSAL RECLINING BULL (_Southern India._)] The law of _Ahimsa_, “non-killing,” which stands at the head of the precepts of both Buddhist and Jaina, is not only far more rigidly observed by the Jaina, but also invested by him with a greater positive as well as relative value. One might say that with the Buddhists it is more a philosophic deduction, with the Jainas more a moral necessity. The position of Buddhists in this matter of _Ahimsa_ is one of compromise. There never was a Buddhist who did not think cruelty to animals an abominable sin, there is no compromise on that point, but, in respect to animal food, the usual Buddhist layman is not really more strict than any very humane person in the West; he abjures sport, he will not kill animals himself, but he does not refuse to eat meat if it is set before him. The Buddhists declare that the Lord Buddha was prayed to forbid animal food absolutely, but he would not. It is argued that in the flesh itself, when the life is gone from it, there is nothing particularly sacred: therefore it is permissible to sustain life on it. Your servants may buy meat ready for sale in the market: it would be there just the same if you did not send to buy it, but you ought not to tell them to give an order for some sort of meat which is not on sale; still less should you incite people to snare or shoot wild animals for your table. The Buddhists of to-day say with the opponents to vegetarianism in Europe, that total abstention from the flesh of animals would lead to the disappearance of the chief part of them; though it might be answered that sheep would still be wanted for their wool, goats and cows for their milk, oxen for ploughing. But a harder question is, What would happen to these animals when they grew old? The Jainas seek to settle this crux by building hospitals for them, but the result has been indifferently encouraging.