S No. |
Principle |
Description |
1. |
To examine separation of the mother and newborn for
30 days after delivery
|
To avoid infection to the mother and the baby for the
period of a stage when both are very liable to outer infections |
2. |
To keep woman away from all actions for 5 days through
her menstrual periods |
To provide necessary rest to the woman (also, allowing
for the poor hygiene levels in those days or even today
in rustic India) For woman
|
3. |
To take early morning bath every day |
Personal hygiene |
4. |
To maintain both exterior and interior purity and remaining
content |
Inner hygiene means a good purpose, humble manners,
nature without envious approach, etc. |
5. |
To think twice a day i.e. morning and evening (period
when night is being divided from the day) |
Morning meditation to consider over the proposed
activities of day, whether my procedures are right,
moral or am I going to do something next to my life
values. Also, to pray the lord for instructions and
power to move ahead in the life path.
Evening meditation to take a supply of day’s
actions, whether I made any mistake? Did I hurt somebody?
Whether I spent the day in positive activities or just
washed out this valuable time? |
6. |
To sing the Lord’s glory and narrate His qualities
every evening |
|
7. |
To offer daily oblation to the holy blaze with a heart
filled with manner of welfare, love and loyalty |
Daily (preferably morning) oblations with: Feelings
of welfare of all living being , Love for nature and whole
world, Devotion to the Lord |
8. |
Use filtered water, milk and carefully cleaned fuel/
firewood |
To make the water and milk bacteria free! In case of
firewood to see that some insects etc. don’t get
burned with the fuel and pollute the environment |
9. |
Filter your speech! |
Think before you speak. |
10. |
To be forgiving in nature |
Forgiveness is a parameter of greatness. This one virtue
could uplift a normal person to the standards of great
souls of the world. Guru said further, " if somebody
come to you shouting, become cool like water!" |
11. |
To be compassionate |
Compassion helps in purifying the heart. It is opposite**
to the forgiveness (Refer rule 10 and end note) in a
sense that in forgiving, we keep our heart and mind
cool against some external stimuli, whereas in compassion,
we imbibe the feelings of the helpless.
We put ourselves in the shoes of victim (of some other
external circumstance, assault, stimuli) and acting
accordingly. |
12. |
Not to steal |
Trying to own someone else’s things through cheating,
or stealing is theft. Theft is the dirt of the character.
It pinches the soul. |
13. |
Not to revile/ condemn someone |
Reviling means insulting stealthily or disparaging
behind the back. This is different from open criticism.
Criticism is done openly with an objective of the improvement,
whereas the objective of reviling/condemning someone
is only to malign the victim’s image/position
in the eyes of listener or the community. Condemning
is an act of cowards and done out of envy and/or hatred.
|
14. |
Not to tell lies |
A liar can never attain respect of others. It is insult
to the gift of speech. There was a time, when even the
court used to accept the testimony of Bishnoi men as hard
evidence |
15. |
Not to indulge in opprobrium |
One should not indulge in any unnecessary/ wasteful
debates. All such discussions/ deliberations, which
are anti-social, anti-human fall under this category.
It is to be noted that the Guru has not proscribed
/ banned a healthy debate on issues concerning the welfare
of all. |
16. |
To observe fast and meditate on no-moon night (and the
same day i.e. Amavsya) |
To provide rest to the body and its internal systems.
This day of the month has a special significance from
astronomical and planetary science’s point of
view. In addition, the regular fading of the moon’s
appearance is also symbolic of the perishable nature
of life.
So in this context, one should not waste his/her energy
in the daily routine work but should ‘charge’
his /her energy level and introspect & ponder over
the collective welfare |
17. |
To recite the holy name of Lord Vishnu |
|
18. |
To be compassionate towards all living beings |
|
19. |
Not to fell green trees |
|
20. |
To kill the non-perishables! |
To overcome the non-perishable enemies of human beings
viz. lust, anger, envy, greed and attachment. |
21. |
To partake food cooked by self/ other religious person
or one who is pure by heart and work |
|
22. |
To provide a common shelter (Thhat) for goat/sheep to
avoid them being slaughtered in abattoirs |
No Bishnoi should sell a male goat/sheep because
these could be used for slaughtering purposes. Hence,
he should send them to That’s where the whole
community provides feed and shelter for them.
In later years, most Bishnoi’s got out of the
business of rearing goats/ sheep, etc. |
23. |
Not to have bull’s castrated |
In rural India, bulls are castrated before they are
used as bullocks for agricultural purposes. Guru prohibited
this activity for his disciples.
The underlining feeling behind this commandment is
that Bishnoi’s rear the bovines like their son/daughters
and getting them castrated through a painful procedure
portray nothing but cruelty. |
24. |
Not to partake of opium |
Or any product made out of opium |
25. |
Not to use tobacco and its products |
|
26. |
Not to partake of cannabis |
|
27. |
Not to drink liquor |
|
28. |
Not to eat meat or non-vegetarian dishes |
The underlying rationale of this commandment are
two pronged. To protect the animals/birds from being
slaughtered by creating a market barrier!
To protect the man, the best creation of the nature,
from stooping to such low standards as eating meat of
dead animals/birds. Scientifically also the structure
of man’s teeth, jaws etc. is of not a carnivorous
animal but is that of a herbivorous creature.
Interestingly, if the meat eating would have been that
superior, why even the non-vegetarian people eat meat/
eggs of the herbivorous animals/birds and not that of
carnivorous animals/birds? |
29. |
Not to use blue coloured clothes |
In ancient India, the blue colour used to be obtained
from indigo. Thus it’s possible that the Guru
wanted to stop destruction of this wild shrub or promote
its cultivation in lieu of other life supporting crops.
Blue is the colour of death , poision ( Indian Mythology-
Lord Shiva). It is also thought that the blue colour
do not reflect the harmful ultraviolet rays but absorbs
them, which is a major health hazard. |
