Dr. Sulekh Chand Jain
Here again, there are some Jain brothers and sisters who separate the two - i.e what they do in the temples and what they do outside. In my opinion, the biggest temples and poojas are outside the temples.
- In 2009, President Obama went to Ghana in West Africa. There, near the City of Accra, he was taken to visit a site where, during the African slave trades, the slaves were held in captivity in dungeons prior to the arrival of the ships that will take them to Europe and North and South America. In Ghana and adjoining areas, many slave trade agents would go out and forcibly kidnap men and women, bring them into these warehouses and hold them like cattle waiting for the arrival of the ships.
This all took place on the ground floor of a vast building. On the second floor of the same building there was a church where the slave captors and traders (but not the slaves) would go for their poojas/prayers and religious rituals. After seeing this, President Obama was in tears. He called it “striking” that “right above one of the dungeons where male captives were kept was a church. And that reminds us that sometimes we can tolerate and stand by a great evil even as we think that we are doing good.” What went on downstairs did not bother the consciences of the same people when they worshipped upstairs. The two are inseparable.
- Similarly, I want to share another real incident that will explain the same kind of hypocrisy that exists in many cultures including in Indian culture. About twenty two years ago, Dr. Michael Fox, Vice President of the HSUS (Humane Society of United States) and a US Jain organization called Mahavir Vision, Inc. collaborated in making a video about the cruelty to animals in India. The filming crew first went to a Hindu temple in southern India (near Ooty/ Nilgiri Hills) and saw many animals being worshipped there inside the temple.
- For example, they saw people worshipping the cow and bull in the form of a statue/idol of Nandi, a monkey in the form of a statue/idol of Hanuman, and an elephant in the form of a statue of Ganesha. Next, the camera moves out of the temple and within about a mile or so away from the temple, the crew saw cows and bulls being marched long distances to slaughterhouses, monkeys being made to dance, and elephants being captured and killed for their tusks and ivory. The commentator in this one-hour long video says “To the best of my knowledge, the Hindu religion is the only one that actually worships animals so long as they are made of stone and are in the temples. The same animals are tortured and killed when they are real and outside the temples. What a disconnect between worship and actual practice.”
