History of Vegitarianism and Cow Veneration in India

Author(s): Willem B Bollee
Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/006921/1

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The History of Vegetarianism and Cow-Veneration in India
Ludwig Alsdorf
Translated from German by Bal Patil Revised by Nichola Hayton
Edited with additional notes, a bibliography and four appendices by Willem Bollée
ROUTLEDGE
Routledge Advances in Jaina Studies

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THE HISTORY OF VEGETARIANISM AND COW-VENERATION
IN INDIA
For the first time, this influential study by Ludwig Alsdorf is made available to an English speaking audience, translated by Bal Patil. It focuses on two of the most pertinent issues in Indian religion, the history of vegetarianism and cow-veneration, and its historical approach remains relevant to this day.
With reference to significant brahminical texts, such as key chapters of the Book of Manu, the book centres on the author's analysis of the role of Jainism in the history of vegetarianism. The author explores the history of meat-eating in India and its relationship to religious thought and custom, and searches for solutions to the problem of cattle veneration. Besides a comprehensive translation of the original German manuscript 'Beiträge zur Geschichte von Vegetarismus und Rinderverehrung in Indien', four important articles directly related to Alsdorf's work by Kapadia, Heesterman and Schmidt are made available in this new edition.
These additional contributions and careful notes by the editor Willem Bollée add a modern perspective to a study that remains a key reference for students and scholars of Religious Studies, Asian Studies and History
Ludwig Alsdorf (1904-1978) was one of the most influential Indologists of his generation. He had wide range of interests and worked on Prakrit, Apabhramsha and Pali literature, in particular on Jaina universal history and prosody. His pioneering metrical analyses of ancient Indian literature prepared the ground for great advances in the dating of texts and the reconstruction of the history of Indian philosophy. One of his most influential studies is the present work. Willem Bollée is Professor Emeritus at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Bal Patil is an independent researcher, journalist and Chairman of the Jain Minority Status Committee, Dakshin Bharat Jain Sabha, a century old Jain organization in India. He is the co-author of Jainism (1974, with Colette Caillat and A.N. Upadhye), and his English translation of Ludwig Alsdorf's Les Etudes Jaina, Etat Present et Taches Futures, edited by Willem Bollée was published in 2006. His translation of Hiralal Jain's Jainism Through the Ages from Hindi into English is due for publication.

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ROUTLEDGE ADVANCES IN JAINA STUDIES Series Editor: Peter Flügel School of Oriental and African Studies
Jain Studies have become an accepted part of the Study of Religion. This series provides a medium for regular scholarly exchange across disciplinary boundaries. It will include edited collections and monographs on Jainism.
STUDIES IN JAINA HISTORY AND CULTURE Disputes and Dialogues Edited by Peter Flügel
HISTORY, SCRIPTURE AND CONTROVERSY IN A MEDIEVAL JAIN SECT Paul Dundas
THE HISTORY OF VEGETARIANISM AND COW-VENERATION IN INDIA

Ludwig Alsdorf Edited by W. Bollée

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THE HISTORY OF VEGETARIANISM
AND COW-VENERATION
IN INDIA
Ludwig Alsdorf Translated from German by Bal Patil
Revised by Nichola Hayton
Edited with additional notes, a bibliography and four appendices by
Willem Bollée
Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK

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Title of the German original: Beiträge zur Geschichte von Vegetarismus und Rinderverehrung in Indien.
Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur. Abhandlungen der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Klasse Jahrgang 1961 - Nr. 6.
Published by: Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur in Mainz in Kommission bei Franz Steiner Verlag GmbH. - Wiesbaden, 1962.
First published in German in 1962 as 'Beiträge zur Geschichte von Vegetarismus und Rinderverehrung in Indien' by the Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz, Germany First published in English in 2010 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2010 Willem Bollée Typeset in Taj by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon Printed in the UK by the MPG Books Group All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Alsdorf, Ludwig, 1904-1978.
(Beiträge zur Geschichte von Vegetarismus und Rinderverehrung in Indien. English] The history of vegetarianism and cow-veneration in India/ Ludwig Alsdorf; translated by Bal Patil; revised by Nichola Hayton; edited by Willem Bollée.
p. cm. - (Routledge advances in Jaina studies; 3) First published in German in 1962 as 'Beiträge zur Geschichte von Vegetarismus und Rinderverehrung in Indien' by Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz, Germany.
Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Vegetarianism - Religious aspects - Jainism. 2. Cows - Religious aspects - Jainism. 3. Jainism - History. 4. Vegetarianism - India - History. I. Patil, Bal, 1932II. Bollée, Willem B. III. Title. BL1375.V44A5813 2010 294.5'48693-dc22
2009031560
ISBN10: 0 415-54824-1 (hbk) ISBN10: 0 203-85959-6 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-54824–3 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-85959-9 (ebk)

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CONTENTS
Abbreviations Introduction
viii
Contributions to the History of Vegetarianism and Cow-veneration in India
Bibliography Subject index Index locorum
5
Appendix I Reviews J. C. Heesterman
90
Appendix II The Origin of Ahimsā Hanns-Peter Schmidt
94
Appendix III Ahimsā and Rebirth Hanns-Peter Schmidt
128
Works cited and their abbreviations
160
Appendix IV Prohibition of Flesh-eating in Jainism H. R. Kapadia
163

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ABBREVIATIONS
Amg.
ĀT. Baudh. BKBh Dasav Mbh MW PE PSM PW
Ardhamāgadhī Apastamba Baudhāyana Bșhatkalpabhāşya Dasaveyaliya Mahabharata Monier Williams, Sanskrit-English Dictionary Pillar Edict Pāia-sadda-mahaņņavo Böhtlingk und Roth, Sanskrit-Wörterbuch Rock Edict Sanskrit Vājasaneya Vasiştha Yājñavalkya
RE
Sa.
Vāj.
Vas.
Yājñ.
vii

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INTRODUCTION
The subjects of this essay, sparing living beings, which gradually led to vegetarianism, and the veneration of cattle, which has no direct relation to it, were not new to indologists when Alsdorf took them up, but no one had strictly applied the historical method to them. The fact that new publications with references to his study keep being published, such as Scherfe 1993 mm 164–168, amply shows its continuous actuality and justifies an English version at a time when the knowledge of German in our discipline is no longer obvious.
Originally ahimsā - non-violence (to living beings) - had nothing to do with vegetarianism as it was, in Alsdorf's opinion, based on (but not explained by) a 'magico-ritualistic' dread of destroying life, this being part of an all-Indian religious development. In the Vedic period people ate meat of ritually killed animals, specially cattle, because killing to sacrifice was not discredited. Later, ahimsā more and more limited meat consumption. As early as Kautilya, before the Manusmộti that is, ahimsā was propagated as an ideal for all people, but at the time of the Manusmrti brahmanic renouncers still ate meat, for religions are conservative and the mendicants, brahmin as well as Jain and Buddhist, according to Alsdorf are still continuing the nomadic stage of the Indians when they entered the subcontinent.
The greater part of the treatise is dedicated to an analysis of the three strata of the juridical literature, viz. Dharmasūtras, Dharmaśāstras (beginning with Manu) and contemporary texts such as Yājnavalkya and relevant parts of the Mahābhārata (stories of Tulādhāra and Vicakhnu; connection between vegetarianism and Vaişņavism), and finally the independent commentaries to the old texts and the Křtyakalpataru and other Nibandhas. Alsdorf stresses the contradiction in the juxtaposition of old and new in Manu (after the example of the levirate). In an excursion the relation between
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INTRODUCTION
Vasiştha and Manu is dealt with. Summarizing he states that there is little ground for Bühler's assumption of a lost MänavaDharmasūtra as a source of Manu, and that Vasiştha comes between the older Dharmasūtras and the Manusmrti. The essential difference between brahmanism and the reformatory religions is that in the latter the new ideal of ahimsā did not clash with the great hindrance of the traditional sacrificial cult and other customs at which animals were killed.
This is illustrated in the Uttarajjhāyā 12 and 25 by the ancient story of the Jain monk asking at a brahmanical sacrifice for alms which is refused. In the following discussion the monk does not protest against the killing of the victim, but against mystified ritual practices in a language not understood by the common people, and brahmanical arrogance. The word ahimsă hardly plays a role in the ancient text. The opposition of the Jains to the brahmanical sacrifice was, at least in the beginning, only part of their opposition against brahmanic religion and haughtiness. Jainism (Jinism) and Buddhism participate in a pan-Indian spiritual movement which is to be taken into account for the interpretation of the famous historical testimonies for the ancient Indian vegetarianism in Asoka's inscriptions.
In the emperor Asoka's edicts, too, ahimsā is evidenced as nonBuddhist. Asoka participates in a common Indian movement of thought and is a religiously tolerant monarch; his Buddhism only favours his ahimsā.
A summary of views on ahimsā was given in the English Abstracts of the Tenth World Sanskrit Conference in Bangalore (1997: 374–76) by H.W. Bodewitz, who takes ahimsā to originally be an alternative to Vedic sacrificial ritual. Some later publications have been inserted into the Bibliography of the present translation of Alsdorf's text.
The last quarter of Alsdorf's essay is dedicated to the problem of cattle veneration to which he does not know a solution. He ascribes it, first reluctantly - and aware of the fact that for Indologists “it is a most convenient catchall and a dignified academic way of saying “I don't know"' (Doniger O'Flaherty 1980:244) – to the Indus Valley Civilisation, but then, after discovering cattle bones, gave up the idea again, whereas Professor Doniger seems to seek a solution in a psychoanalytical direction.
Regarding the appendices to Alsdorf's treatise, it was thought to be of interest to add J.C. Heesterman's review of it, as well as H.-P. Schmidt's articles 'The Origin of Ahimsā' and 'Ahimsā and Rebirth', with the kind permission of the authors and their publishers.
ix For Personal & Private Use Only

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HISTORY OF VEGETARIANISM IN INDIA
Heesterman objects to Alsdorf's taking the contradictions in texts such as Manu as chronological successions and would rather parallel the monk, who can only lead a sinless life thanks to the layman's killing his food and water, to the yajamāna, the person who pays for and profits from the sacrifice, enabled to partake of the meat by the Vedic priest who kills the victim. Thus the cycle of life and death can only be broken by renouncers who avoid death by ahimsa. This would explain the juxtaposition of contradictions and also point to the problem of the origin of ahimsā.
As to this problem, Schmidt in his first paper 'Origin of ahimsa' (1962, reprinted here) thinks Alsdorf 'lost sight of the difference between ahimsa and vegetarianism' (last para but one of p. 626) and would himself imagine the latter to be a popularized version of the former doctrine. To that end he is searching 'for the specific motives on which the rule of ahimsa for the brahmanic renouncer is based' (last para of ch. I). He then establishes that in Vedic texts ahimsā is not expected of the common man, but a brahmin 'following the ahimsikā vṛtti accepts only food... killed by others' (last para but one of p. 635) and a Vedic student has to keep the vow of ahimsa which is a means of penance. Thus the idea of ahimsā may have 'originated among world renouncers, was adopted by the Brāhmaṇas and finally considered to be a rule for the whole society' (first para of ch. III) for which the brahmins were the social example.
From the Bhrgu-legend Schmidt deduces that the ritualists were animists who put plants and animals on a par with man and animals and thus wanted to eliminate the evil consequences of killing and hurting them. The verb 'to kill' is replaced by 'to appease'. Schmidt then emphasizes the similarity of the Vedic and Jain animistic Weltanschauung, and the connection of ahimsa and belief in reincarnation. Absolute renunciation: may lead to final release from transmigration, but 'the ethical motivation of non-violence is secondary: the original motive was fear resulting from the breakdown of magico-ritualistic world-conception' (last sentence of p. 655).
In Schmidt's second appendix here he continues his study of ahimsa and reincarnation, the ideas the three Indian religions share and which thus in his view may also have a common source. Salvation from transmigration is only possible for renouncers, those that is, who strictly practise ahimsā, as against the loose ahimsa of the laity (which Śvetâmbaras of course disagree with). Schmidt further argues with Wezler who thinks magico-ritual fear of destroying life in any form is not the only ground of ahimsa, but does not suggest other causes.

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INTRODUCTION
At the author's request the last paragraph of ch. VII, and ch. VIII were put at the end of ch. VI. In it he once more rejects the view of Alsdorf and Chapple who looked for the origin of ahimsa and vegetarianism in the Indus civilization in favour of a development inside the Vedic culture. For Schmidt vegetarianism has become the cornerstone of ahimsa, because one can abstain from meat but not from vegetal food.
The article now ends with a refutation of Heesterman' theses, first, that the obsessive concern about ritual undoing of the injury (to victims) points to the impending collapse of the violent sacrifice. The replacement of the Ṛgvedic decapitation by strangulation does in Schmidt's opinion not mean a progressive decline of violence, but another attitude towards blood which is offered to the demons and therefore must stay outside the place of sacrifice. Schmidt also rejects Heesterman's opinion 'that the typical fusion of ahimsā and vegetarianism arose from brahminical ritual thought, while Buddhists and Jains originally had no particular use for vegetarianism' (second para of p. 227). On the contrary, the Jains have become the strictest vegetarians whereas not all believers in the brahmanical revelation (śruti) are vegetarians, nor even all brahmins.
It is of course only fair to also give the Jains a chance to explain their view on vegetarianism and thus Kapadia's article 'Prohibition of Flesh-eating in Jainism' of 1933, because it contains a letter of Jacobi, which was inserted as representative of many others such as Upadhye or Malvania, the titles of some of whose articles can be found in the bibliography.
The publication in the Routledge series required many notes and the addition of this Introduction; misprints have been silently corrected. References to Indian texts follow the way of quotation in Monier Williams' Sanskrit-English Dictionary, the Critical Pāli Dictionary and Schubring's Doctrine of the Jainas.
Tantus labor non sit cassus.

xi
The editor

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CONTRIBUTIONS TO
THE HISTORY OF
VEGETARIANISM AND
COW-VENERATION IN INDIA
[3] *Two commandments which, also to the Hindus themselves, belong to the most characteristic features of Hinduism and rightly form the foundation of their religion, are: ahimsā, which literally means 'non-violence' (English in the original [WB]) and signifies the practical extension of 'you shall not kill' to the animal world; and the other, apparently inherent in the first, but factually to be treated as distinct, is the veneration of or, as the Indians prefer to say, 'the protection of cows'. To the modern observer both appear to be deeply embedded in the Indian soul. Both played a central role in the life and teaching of Mahātmā Gandhi, appearing as the wellknown 'renunciation of violence', i.e. non-violence raised from the magical-ritual sphere to a mystic-ethical plane. Both have almost incalculable economic consequences which can only be alluded to in passing here. One may smile about the fact that around Cambay in Gujarat, the peasant folk disregard the official rules for getting rid of the strays, which are rampant; on the contrary, every household donates a roti on a daily basis for these useless curs. A minister of agriculture, however, was in no mood for smiling when he lamented in the press a few years ago that the Kathiawar peasants refused to kill the locusts and would rather transport them by cart to the next village and set them free there.
The most conspicuous and economically far-reaching effect of ahimsa is, however, the widely practised renunciation of meat, fish
The pages of the German original are inserted in square brackets. References in the text pertain to these pages. Editor's notes are indicated by (WB).

1

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HISTORY OF VEGETARIANISM IN INDIA
and frequently eggs. By no means are all Hindus vegetarians, indeed not even a majority are, but vegetarianism established by the religion of such a significant and influential section of people as in India has scarcely any parallel elsewhere in the world. We can again refer to Gandhi here. The extraordinary significance which vegetarianism had for him will have strongly impressed every reader of his autobiography, which appeared a few months ago, finally also in German.? [4] In addition to that, the sanctity of cattle (by no means only the cow!) precludes even most non-vegetarians from the consumption of beef, and this considering the fact that the prohibition of cattle killing has plainly made India, the country most abounding with cattle in the world. Millions of cattle which are no longer of service at all are robbing the others of their fodder: it is scientifically verifiable that the available supply of nourishment does not suffice for the rest of cows. This chronic crisis of nutrition could probably alone be solved if the cattle population of India were halved. It is the sacredness of the cattle which presents one of the toughest problems to the Indian economy.
The frequent question about the origin or source of so characteristic and vital a feature of the Indian culture as ahimsā and 'cowveneration' has not been answered satisfactorily to this day. From the start, we should well exclude rationalistic responses such as the prohibition of cattle killing as a wise protection of an absolutely essential agricultural aid from destruction in times of famine, or vegetarianism as a climatic measure of hygienic precaution. On the other hand, the question of the origin of the veneration is even more taxing in view of the fact that in Indian antiquity the situation was quite different from today: the Aryans, whose immigration during the middle of the second millennium BCE is the crucial event in Indian history, are presented in their ancient literature as meateaters, who certainly did not shrink from slaughtering and consuming their numerous cattle.
It is beyond the scope of the present investigation to conclusively answer the question, nor is it possible or intended to write a complete history of ahimsā and cattle protection based on a collection
1 About 1990, G.-D. Sontheimer reckoned 70% of Hindus to be non
vegetarians (private communication (hereafter p.c.) to WB). 2 Gandhi 1960. 3 Alsdorf 1955: 132 - This is not the case any more, see e.g. Harris quoted
in Chapple 1993: 137 (p.c. from Chapple) (WB).

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of material widely scattered throughout the entire literature. It will merely be attempted to trace through observations, especially in the
legal texts', the gradual emergence and assertion of vegetarianism and cattle-protection, and thus, perhaps, to approach an answer to our question. Two methodical remarks must be made in advance.
Firstly, it should once more be stated clearly that vegetarianism and a cattle-taboo must be distinguished despite all relatedness: millions of Hindus, (5) it is true, eat fish, chicken and goats, but on no account beef. The ban on cattle-killing prevails also in places where, perhaps in the service of the goddess Kālī, or in religious festivals especially in Nepal, streams of goat-and buffalo blood flow, and any tourist to India has experienced that even in English-run hotels they are served chicken or what is called mutton (which in reality is goat) at every meal, but very rarely beef. The cattle-taboo is, therefore, to be treated as distinct from vegetarianism, or in addition to it.
Secondly, Indian vegetarianism is unequivocally based on ahimsā; this is clearly expressed in a stanza of the most famous and authoritative of the so-called Indian legal texts, the Manu-smrti:
'One cannot obtain meat without injuring living beings, but the killing of living beings does not lead to heaven; therefore, one must do without meat.'
Yet so logical a conclusion: no flesh without animal slaughter, therefore, no ahimsā without renunciation of meat consumption - appears inevitable only to us and to the majority of modern Indians. By no means, however, is it drawn everywhere even today, as a quote from T. Hagen's book on Nepal, one of many examples, illustrates?: “For the Sherpas the [Buddhist] religion prohibits the killing of animals, but they love meat nevertheless. Therefore butchers are invited to come from Tibet every year in order to slaughter a few yaks.'
4 Much has been compiled in Om Prakash 1961. 5 Some, especially brahmins, are said to eat beef stealthily because it is
cheaper than goatmeat bought by many people (p.c. Sontheimer to WB). 6 5,48: nâkrtvā prāṇinām himsām māmsam utpadyate kvacit / na ca prāņi-vadhaḥ
svargyas, tasman mamsam vivarjayet. A Mahābhārata stanza expresses the same thing more drastically (13, 115, 26): 'For flesh is certainly not produced from grass, wood or stone! Flesh comes from the killing of creatures, therefore it is a sin to eat iť (na hi māmsam trnāt kāşthād upalad vâpi jāyate / hatvā jantum tato māmsam, tasmad dosas tu bhakşane). - See also,
e.g. Zimmerman 1987: ch. VII 'Vegetarianism and Nonviolence' (WB). 7 Hagen 1960: 76.

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The same 'moral principle', according to which it suffices not to do the killing oneself while one can unscrupulously profit from the killing done by others, held good originally and for a long time in ancient India. This is shown by an inquiry into the two great reform religions, Buddhism and Jainism, arising in the sixth century BCE. They have both played a role in the history of ahimsā and vegetarianism, a role which has usually been largely misunderstood.
It is right that both particularly stress ahimsā. Nevertheless it is, to begin with, absolutely certain that the Buddha was not a vegetarian and did not forbid meat-eating to his monks either. As to this, it is quite irrelevant whether eating the sūkara-maddava [6] which, according to the canonical report causes the Master's death, was 'juicy pork' (which appears fairly certain) or whatever else for there is no doubt that the Master and his disciples, as the texts report, ate also meat on numerous occasions when they were invited to the houses of the laity.
The monks in Burma, who follow and guard the ancient injunctions and teachings with particular purity and austerity, nowadays also accept meat as alms from the laity without more ado and consume the same.10 They are thus in full accord with the oldest code of the rules of the Order, the Vinayapițaka of the Pali canon. In it, meat-eating by the monks and the Buddha is often mentioned and everywhere presumed," and meat and fish, along with rice boiled in milk, groats and barley flour, form the solemn and oft-repeated list of the 'five (basic) foodstuffs'.12 Not only that, but vegetarianism is explicitly discarded or declared unnecessary under certain conditions.
It is related in Cullavagga 7, 3, 14f. (Vin II 197, 4ff.), how the wicked Devadatta planned to bring about a schism by proposing to
8 Probably rather in the fifth century, see Dundas 2002: 24 (WB). 9 Franke 1913: 222 note 4, and Waldschmidt 1939: 63ff. 10 According to the information passed on by word of mouth by leading
Burmese monks, but a quotation from Tinker 1957:171 may be added: 'For instance, Buddhism abhors the taking of life and, with its ancient Hindu associations, particularly objects to the killing of cows for meat. Within recent years a vegetarian movement has gained ground among leading exponents of Buddhism in which Ū Nu is particularly prominent. The Prime Minister has disavowed any intention by those in power to prohibit the killing of animals for food, nevertheless this practice is definitely becoming increasingly restricted ... In Lower Burma the sale of beef has
ceased entirely, owing to restrictions.' 11 Cf. the indexes to Horner 1949–66 under 'meat' and 'flesh'. 12 bhojaniyam nāma pañca bhojanāni: odano kummāso sattu maccho mamsam.

For Person
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the Buddha five intensifications of the rules of the Order: the monks must live for life only in the forest and not go into the villages, live only on alms and not accept invitations, wear only rags from rubbish-heaps and not let themselves be presented with clothes, live only under trees and not under a roof, and finally, eat neither flesh nor fish; infringements of these injunctions would have to be counted as transgression.13 The rejection of these proposals, which [7] Devadatta expected, then followed quite promptly. The Buddha left it to the monks, whether to dwell in the forest or in the vicinity of a village, whether to beg for alms or to accept invitations, whether to wear rags or to accept donations of clothes, and he permitted an eight months' stay (outside the rainy season that is!) under a tree. As to the last proposal, however, he declared: 'Fish and meat are pure under three conditions: when (the monk) has not seen, nor heard and has no suspicion (that the animal was killed on purpose for him).'14
The bracketed supplement follows inter alia from a story narrated in the Mahāvagga (76, 31, 12–14; Vin I 237, 24ff.). The general Sīha in Vesāli has obtained a lot of meat for the Buddha and his monks, who had accepted his invitation to a meal. While this is being consumed, the Jains run through the streets and shout:
Today the general Sīha killed a big animal and prepared therefrom a meal for the ascetic Gautama. The ascetic Gautama eats this meat although he knows that it was especially killed for him (uddissa katam), that the killing was (done) for his sake (pațicca-kammam).15
13 sādhu, bhante, bhikkhū yāvajīvam āraññakā assu, yo gām'-antam osareyya,
vajjam nam phuseyya; yāva jīvam pinda-pātikā assu, yo nimantanam sādiyeyya, vajjam nam phuseyya; yāvajīvam pamsu-kūlikā assu, yo gahapati-cīvaram sādiyeyya, vajjam nam phuseyya; yāvajīvam rukkha-mülikā assu, yo channam upagaccheyya, vajjam nam phuseyya; yāvajīvam maccha-mamsam na khādeyyum, yo maccha-mamsam khädeyya, vajjam nam phuseyyā ti. - This would
presuppose that many laypeople would inhabit the jungle (WB). 14 tikoti-parisuddham maccha-mamsam: a-dittham a-ssutam a-parisankitam ti. 15 ajja Sthena senā-patinā thūlam pasum vadhitvá samaņassa Gotamassa
bhattam katam, tam samaņo Gotamo jānam uddissa katam mamsam paribhuñjati paticca-kammam (Horner: ... the recluse Gotama makes use of this meat, knowing that it was killed on purpose (for him), that the deed was (done) for his sake'). The expressions uddissa katam and paticcakammam, of which the first, as we shall see, has a parallel with the Jains,

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The general, to whom these reproaches are reported, rejects the same as a calumny and protests that he would not even for his life's sake deliberately deprive any living being of its life.16
In fact, he neither slaughtered the same nor let it be slaughtered, but had only sent out a servant with the customary formula: 'Go, my dear, and see, if there is meat.'17 At the end of the meal the Buddha announces to his monks:
One should, monks, not eat meat when one knows that it has been killed especially for him (uddissa katam)... I permit you, monks, fish and [8] meat, which are pure in a threefold respect: (when namely the monk) has not seen, nor heard, nor cherished a suspicion ...18
For the Buddha and his monks, therefore, abstinence from meat and fish belonged to the nonsensical, and hence objectionable tightening and overstraining of the monastic rules. 19 The essential condition for eating meat is, however, that the consumer has neither killed the animal himself, nor had it killed especially for him, so that the responsibility for the killing does neither directly nor indirectly fall upon him. We shall see that a similar condition, but even more strictly conceived and hedged in, also holds good for the Jains.
Today the Jains, laymen as well as monks, are the strictest of all vegetarians, and ahimsā represents to them as the highest command of their religion (ahimsā paramo dharmaḥ): they extend it even to vermin; I have myself witnessed how a poisonous centipede (kankhajūrā), which had bitten a monk, was put in a brass pot and set free in a field. That Jain monks may have ever partaken of meat is inconceivable and unacceptable to modern orthodox Jains.20
in connection with 'flesh' could be euphemisms; as to this we can render them only with 'killed particularly for ...' and 'killed for his
sake'. 16 na ca mayam jīvita-hetu pi sañcicca pāņam jīvitā voropeyyāma. - This seems
an odd utterance for a general (WB). 17 gaccha, bhane, pavatta-mamsam jānāhi! (Horner: 'Go, good fellow, find out
if there is meat to hand'). 18 na, bhikkhave, jänam uddissa katam mamsam paribhuñjitabbam... anujānāmi,
bhikkhave, tikoti-parisuddham maccha-mamsam: a-dittham a-ssutam aparisankitam. -Seyfort Ruegg 1980:240 refers with the wrong page number
(53) to this passage in Alsdorf (WB). 19 As regards the later battle against meat-eating in some Mahāyāna books
cf. Waldschmidt 1939: 80ff. 20 See Kapadia's article further down (WB).

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Nevertheless, it ensues incontestably, as Schubring points out (2000, § 154) from passages in two of the oldest canonical texts. Here, in the long list of alms which the monk should not accept, also appear 'meat with many bones and fish with many fishbones'.21 The reason given for the prohibition, in a stanza [9] which recurs identically in both texts, is that more of such alms would be thrown
-
21 Ayäranga II 1, 10, 5 bahu-y-aṭṭhiyam va mamsam maccham va bahu-kanṭagam; Dasaveyaliya 5, 1, 73 bahu- aṭṭhiyam poggalam animisam vā bahu-kanṭagam. It is quite obvious that here, in the midst of the prose of the Ayära, an old sloka-line in its original form is contained, the metre of which, just in the metrical chapter of the Dasaveyāliya, was grossly violated by the secondary substitution of mamsa by poggala and of maccha by animisa. For animisa 'not blinking' in Sanskrit, too, the meaning 'fish' is attested, but for pudgala the meaning 'meat' is otherwise never and nowhere known. It is easy to show how it has come about in our passage through a misconception. In the continuation of the Ayara-passage to be quoted subsequently, poggala – literally 'mass, matter'- is used to indicate the quantity of meat and could be conceived as a designation of the sheer meat in contrast to the bones; on it the further generalizing substitution of mamsa through poggala in the Dasaveyāliya is based. - (Sūyagaḍa 2, 1, 16 se jaha namae kei purise mamsão atthim abhinivvaṭṭittanam uvadamsejjā: ayam, auso, mamse, ayam aṭṭhi 'just as when someone draws a bone out of meat and shows (it with the words) "This, venerable Sir, is the meat, that, the bone"' and Samavaya 34 pacchanne āhāra-nihāre a-disse mamsa-cakkhuṇā '(the Jina's) eating and defecating is secret; no flesh (i.e. human) eye can see (it)' clearly show the normal meaning of mamsa in the canon. Later, as in Tiloyapannatti IV 899, Jinas seem not to eat at all: bhoyana-uvasaggaparihīņā - an attempt to stop the recollection of the opposite in some ancient texts? - See also Dundas 1985 and 1997: 12; Cottam Ellis 1991: 91; Jaini 1993 [WB]).
That, however, even in this text, the normal words mamsa and maccha are at all substituted by poggala, which in fact has a quite different meaning, and by the far-fetched animisa, and that by a gross disregard for the metre, should be understood only as a kind of euphemism in which the later disapproval of meat and fish is suggested. Compare the subsequent exposition of the later reinterpretation of the words and the canonical references for the condemnation of meat-eating to be dealt with further down. - Cf. Deo 1956: 172 (> Jha 2004: 85 note 95). In PSM poggala is given the sense of mamsa in two places: Hemacandra, Prākṛtavyākaraṇa I 116 and Nemicandra II (until 1270 C.E.), Pravacanasarôddhara [Bombay, 1922] 421b 9 [dvāra 268, vs 64] tiri-pañc'indiya davve khette satthi-hattha poggalâinnam, with the scholiast Siddhasena's explanation 421a 10 tairaścena paudgalyena mamsena... The oldest meaning of Sa. pudgala seems to be 'body, a man's material appearance' from which the meaning 'flesh' would seem an easy development, cf. pinda 'body; meat' and medaskṛt 'body, flesh' (MW) (WB).

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away than could be eaten, hence the greater part would be refuse.22 Should now, Āyāranga II 1, 10,6 continues, someone offer the monk meat with many bones or fish with many fishbones, he should answer: Your Reverence, or Sister, I am not permitted to accept meat with many bones: give me as much (poggala, body, mass) as you like, but no bones.' If, however, he should have inadvertently accepted meat with many bones or fish with many fishbones (certainly that means: if he should find out after accepting the alms that it contains too many bones or fishbones), he should not offend the donor through a brusque return, but should go away with it and eat the meat and fish in a ritually pure (i.e. free from living beings) place, a garden or a lodging, and then deposit the bones or fishbones in a suitable place with the precautionary measures assigned for such
cases.23
22 appe siyā bhoyaņa-jjāe, bahu ujjhiya-dhammie; literally: 'Little would belong
to the category of edibles, much would have the characteristic of what has to be thrown away.' (In Āyāra II 1, 10, 4 the same verse-line serves immediately before to substantiate the ban on accepting sugarcane; in the Dasaveyāliya, sugarcane, meat, fish and other things are combined into one sloka). Jacobi, Leumann (1892: 621) and Schubring incorrectly print bahu-ujjhiya-dhammie as one compound, and Schubring translates: 'would be an alms small in quantity, but a great prostitution of the dharma.' It seems certain to me that Jacobi's translation 'so that only a part of it can be eaten and the greater part must be rejected' has chosen the right meaning; it rests on Silânka's quite correct explanation of the Ayāra passage: atrâivam-bhūte parigrhīte 'py antariksv-ādike 'lpam aśanīyam bahu
paritya-jana-dharmakam iti matvā na parigrhṇīyāt. 23 siyā nam paro bahu-atthiena mamseņa vā maccheņa vā uvanimantejjā: āusanto
samanā, abhikankhasi bahu-atthiyam mamsam padigāhettae? etappagāram nighosam soccă nisamma se puvvām eva āloejjā: āuso ti vā bhainī ti vā, no khalu kappai me bahu-atthiyam mamsam padigāhettae; abhikankhasi me dāum jāvatiyam, tāvatiyam poggalam dalayāhi, mă aţthiyāim ... se ya āhacca padigāhie siyā, tam no hi tti vaejjā, no anaha [? read: ahaha?] tti vaejjā. se ttam ädāya egantam avakkamejjā 2 ttā ahe ārāmamsi vā ahe uvassayamsi vă app' ande jäva samtānae mamsagam macchagam bhoccā atthiyaim kantage gahāya se ttam āyāe egantam avakkamejjā ahe jhāma-thandilamsi vā jāva pamajjiya 2 paritthavejja. (Jacobi's translation 'he should not say: "No, away, take it!"' conveys the expected sense, but is not to be reconciled with his text: tam no tti vaejjā, no ha tti, no hamdaha tti vaejjä. The above text is based on a collation by Schubring, according to whose kind information no handaha tti vaejjā 'he must not say: "there, take it" is to be deleted as not being in the text, though in itself it would fit well. The Cūrņi says: so ya puna saddho saddhī vā pharusam na bhanejjā, which can only signify: 'but he must not speak rudely to the layman or laysister (accusative!).'

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In the Dasaveyāliya the same rule is found in a [10] somewhat later passage, thus separated from the ban to accept meat and fish with many bones and fishbones, and extended to indigestible foreign bodies in the food; 5, 1, 84ff:
Thereby while eating it may happen that he hits on a bone, fishbone, a piece of straw or wood, a small stone or something similar, but he must not, after he has taken it out, throw it away, neither (should he) spit it out of his mouth; he must take it in his hand, go away, find a spot free of living beings, carefully put it down and then return.24
In his tīkā on the Āyāranga, finished in 872 CE, Śīlânka does not comment on the words mamsa and maccha, because, evidently, he held these completely unequivocal and normal words to need no explanation. That he understood these phrases in their ordinary sense one can very well conclude from the remark he added to his explanation of the above verses appe siyā bhoyaņa-jjāe: he gives this explanation where the verse appears for the first time, namely at the prohibition to accept sugarcane, and points to the following 'meatsūtra' with the words evam māmsa-sūtram api neyam - a designation. This could scarcely have been his choice if by māmsa he had wished a vegetable substance to be understood. It is different for the classical commentator of the Dasaveyāliya, Haribhadra (writing in the middle of the eighth century CE); the peculiar expressions poggala
24 tattha se bhuñjamāṇassa atthiyam kantao siyā / tana-kattha-sakkaram vā vi
annam vā vi tahā-viham // tam ukkhivittu na nikkhive, āsaena na chaddae/ hatthena tam gaheūņam egantam avakkame // egantam avakkamettā a-cittam pațilehiyā / jayam paritthavejjā, parithappa padikkame. Schubring translates: ... it might happen that he meets with a bone, a thorn, a bit of grass ...' It appears certain to me that atthiyam kantao signifies bones or fishbones' here, too. - Here also Ohanijjutti 482 may be mentioned where the monk is ordered to remove bones and fishbones, etc. from his alms: gara, visa, atthiya, kantaga ... vigiñcejja, cf. Mette 1974: 102 (text on p. 195); 126 (OhaBh 277). Abhayadeva's contemporary Droņa gives no explanation in his commentary, thus showing that for him the words in question have their common meaning, but Bịhatkalpabhāşya 5870, which depends on ON 482, replaced atthi by (maya-)macchi (mặta-makṣika 'dead fly') and gave kantaga the sense of 'thorn'; see further Mette, op. cit., p. 102 note 97. A still later witness is Ksemakīrti who finished his commentary on the Brhatkalpabhāşya in 1275 CE. On BKBh 1239 māmsa-phala-puppha-bhogi he writes the scholion: 'māmsa' tti yatra durbhikse samāpatite māmsena kālo 'tivāhyate' (WB).

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and aạimisa implicity required an explanation, and he renders them without prejudice as māmsa and matsya, adding that others thought them to be the names of two fruits with a consistency similar to that of meat and fish, because they stand in a section otherwise dealing with plants.25
This explanation as fruits with hard seeds or stalks, or the like, is the only generally recognized explanation today. In 1932 a new edition and translation of the Dasaveyāliya produced by Schubring was printed in Glückstadt through the munificence of one of the Ahmedabad businessmen,26 (11) and then it was sent to India. When one found out there that in 5, 1,73 mamsa and maccha were translated by 'meat' and 'fish', the whole edition was shelved; up to this day it has not been delivered, and a Bombay solicitor explained to me that there could be no question of meat and fish in the text, as it would go against the preaching of ahimsā by the founder of the religion, Mahāvīra. The Jains lodged a protest with the editor of the 'Sacred Books of the Easť, Max Müller, against Jacobi's translation of the Ayāra-passage, and the high priest of the Bombay Jain community sent Jacobi the following elucidation of the passage: 'A monk or a nun on a begging tour is prohibited from receiving a conserve of fruits containing a large portion of bark or an exterior covering of a fruit.'27
25 anye tv abhidadhati: vanaspaty-adhikarāt tathāvidha-phalâbhidhāne ete iti. 26 'Ahmedabad: The Managers of Sheth Anandji Kalianji' - in Schubring
1932: 210, the incriminated words meat and fish with many bones in vss 73 and 84 have been replaced by a series of crosses. This, and the reason for it, ought of course have been mentioned in the editor's Preface
(WB). 27 Cf. Kapadia 1933: 232ff. In his long letter addressed to Motilal Ladhaji
dt. 14/2/1924 and reproduced there, Jacobi, by virtue of two passages in the Mahābhāşya and in Vācaspatimiśra's Nyāyasūtra Commentary, meets the Jains halfway through the proposal to understand the phrases 'meat with many bones' and 'fish with many fishbones' as 'metaphorical designations, which became proverbial for 'an object containing the substance which is wanted in intimate connection with much that must be rejected': The meaning of the passage is, therefore, that a monk should not accept as alms any substance of which only a part can be eaten and a great part must be rejected.'
It is needless to refute in detail Jacobi's argumentation (not completely cited here); an impartial reading of the Ayāranga section should be enough to convince the reader that the question is of real meat and fish. Should 'meat with many bones' metaphorically stand for all, of which only a small part is edible and the greater discardable, it would be inexplicable that the verse appe siya bhoyaņa-ijāe in the Ayaranga would
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Now, in addition to the two passages discussed, there comes yet another famous canonical testimony for the use of meat by the founder28 of the religion himself. In Viyāhapannatti, Sataka 15, (685b sūtra 557; Suttāgame 1731, 26 [WB]) the seriously sick Mahāvīra sends one of his disciples to tell the laywoman Revaī in Mendhiyagāma:
You have prepared for me the bodies of two pigeons which I do not need; (but) besides, you have something else, a leftover from yesterday (pāriyāsiya) of cock-meat killed ('done') by a cat. Bring that; that is what I need. 29
The disciple carried out the instructions and after eating the cockmeat Mahāvīra soon recovered. [12]
be adduced first as the basis of the prohibition of sugarcane and then once again for mamsa and maccha; even less could in the Dasaveyāliya meat ('poggala') and fish ('aņimisa') have been brought together with several vegetable objects into one list which then is followed by the substantiating appe siyā ... - Moreover, such a metaphor sounds rather unexpected when used by vegetarians, but cf. amisa 'meat' > 'anything comestible' put before the Jina image as agra-pūjā (Williams 1963: 223) which seems to point to meat as a common dish (WB).
Bothra's paraphrase in Amar Muni's Illustrated Daśavaikälika sūtra 5, 1, 73f. runs: 'If an ascetic is offered fruits with many seeds, scales, thorns, asthik, tinduk and bilva fruits, sugar-cane slices, pods or other such fruits or vegetables with little to eat and much to throw, he should refuse and tell the donor that he is not allowed to accept such fruit' (1997: 144; p.c. Dr P. Flügel). Suzuko Ohira adopts Schubring's translation in her thesis 1994: 18f. (SS 56ff.), where also the other passages about meat-eating in the canon are dealt with, but appears not to have seen Alsdorf's present work. Bones, as in contrast to meat, are inauspicious (Thurston 1912:57;
Abbott 1974: 419) (WB). 28 Meant is reformer, if the 23rd Fordmaker Pāsa was a historical person
(Dundas 2000: 19; Schubring 2000: 29 (8 16]) which is denied by Bhatt (Jaina Studies 4: 6; see also Bollée 2008a: 2). According to Bhatt, the cāujjāma doctrine ascribed to Pāsa is not earlier than the first or second century BCE. Its unknown originator, whose father may have happened to be called Aśvasena, then was made the son of the king of snakes of that name in the Mbh, because all Jinas are princes, and thus became a
mythological character (WB). 29 tam gacchaha nam tumam, Sīhā, Mendhiyagāmam nagaram Revaie gāhāvainie
gihe, tattha nam Revaie gāhāvaiņie mamam atthāe duve kavoya-sarīrā uvakkhadiyā, tehim no attho. atthi se anne pāriyāsie majjara-kadae kukkudamamsae, tam āharāhi, eenam attho. - The passage and Alsdorf's discussion of it is also dealt with by Wezler 1978: 101. Forest ascetics are allowed to eat of the rest of animals killed by predators (WB).
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The little story bears such ideosyncratic features that one cannot help considering it historical.30 Apart from that, it fits remarkably well with what we have learnt from the Buddhists. In it, too, the phrase 'meat done' in the sense of having been killed by somebody appears; and it agrees exactly with the rule the Buddha passed, that Mahāvīra declines to accept pigeons prepared for his sake (mama atthāe) and instead requests a cock killed not by man but by an animal: there could not be a more certain guarantee, therefore, that the cock was not slaughtered for Mahāvīra, on his account - in this case even the lay sister is free from any responsibility for the killing 31
The commentator of the Viyāhapannatti, Abhayadeva, lived in the second half of the eleventh century. On the 'pigeon bodies' and the meat of the cock ‘done (in) by the cat he remarks: “For these expressions "some" assumed the normal meaning (śrūyamāņam evârtham), "only the sense heard", but others explained the pigeon bodies to be pumpkins, called so after their pigeon colour'; the 'cat' would either be a certain (body) wind32 and mārjāra-krta would mean 'done in order to subside this (wind)', or mārjāra becomes a plant known as 'cat' and mārjāra-krta means 'mixed therewith' (? bhāvita); finally, according to the opinion of the former 'some', kukkuța-māņsa would mean something like bījapūra-kațāha ('lemon
pot'?).33
30 Ohira 1994: 203 (8 546) thinks it is a fiction made up in relation to
Gosāla's prophecy; therefore its historicity can well be doubted'. Ibid., p. 18 (8 57) Ohira wonders that there is hardly any other direct reference (beside Acār and Sūy II 2, 38 [WB]) forbidding monks receiving flesh in the earlier canonical texts' ... (8 58) 'It seems that Pūjapāda is the first author who criticized this point (viz. consumption of meat by monks [WB]) in his Sarvārthasiddhi VI 13... It is thus feasible to assume that the rigid vegetarianism of the present day Jainas commenced at such a later time, most probably after the mass exodus of the Jainas from Mathurā ... (8 59) Receiving meat from the laity was thus understood
not touching upon himsā on the part of the monks at that time' (WB). 31 Apart from this, the flesh of animals killed by beasts of prey (kravyâda)
is also pure according to the brahmanic doctrine, cf. Manu 5, 131; Yājñ. 192 etc., but especially Vas. XIV 27: marjāra-mukha-samsprstam suci eva hi
tad bhavet. 32 Deo 1956: 172f. makes thereof a kind of gas'! 33 duve kavoyā ity adeḥ śrüyamāņam evârtham kecin manyante; anye tv ähuh:
kapotakaḥ pakși-viseșas, tadvad dve phale varņa-sādharmyāt; te kapote kūşmânde, hrasve kapote kapotake te ca śarīre ca vanaspati-jīva-dehatvāt kapota-śarīre. atha vā kapota-śarīre iva dhūsara-varna-sādharmyād eva kapota-śarīre kūşmândaphale eva... majjara-kadae ity äder api kecic chrūyamānam evârtham manyante,
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Here, too, even in the eleventh century, the correct explanation has survived, in addition to the vegetarian reinterpretation, which - a fitting pendant to the attempt to turn the pork eaten by the Buddha into a mushroom dish, or something similar (see p. [6]) - has gained universal acceptance to this day,34 whereas the correct translation meets with fierce indignation. (13) Kapadia cites one such correct translation in Gujarati by G.J. Patel35 and observes:
This translation was greatly resented by Jains, especially when Mr G.J. Patel's article ‘Mahāvīr swāmi no māmsāhār' (the meat-eating of the Lord Mahāvīra) was published ... Several articles were written as a rejoinder by some of the Jain sādhus and others. There they have pointed out that the words kavoya, majjāra and kukkuda do not signify a pigeon, a cat and a cock, but stand for kūşmânda, vāyuvišeșa or virālikā (a kind of vanaspati) and bīja-pūraka, respectively. They have further supported their view by quoting Nighantus and Suśrutasamhitā.
As little as we can agree with these vegetarianist reinterpretations (it is typical enough that for majjāra-kadae two quite different ones were given!), as little can it be denied, on the other hand, that other canonical passages, at least for monks, disapprove of meat-eating, if not condemn it outright. Kapadia has collected these passages in his article of 1933. Although in a quotation from Thānanga IV, Viyāhapannatti VIII, 9 and Uvavāiya 56 (Leumann 1883: 62 last line) we should not translate kuņimâhāra, which is threatened
anye tv āhur: mārjāro vāyu-vibesas, tad-upaśamanāya krtam samskrtam märjārakrtam; apare tv āhur: mārjāro virālikâbhidhāno vanaspati-višeşas, tena krtam bhävitam yat tat tathā. kim tad ity aha: kukkuța-māmsakam bijapūra-katāham. - See Jha 2004: 86 note 102 and Deleu 2007: 106 with reference to Balbir
1984: 30f. (WB). 34 Cf. Deo 1956: 172f. 35 tū Mendhik nagar mã Revati grhapatnī che, te ne tyā jā, tene māre māte be
kabūtar rāndhīne taiyar karya che, paņ te ne kaheje ke māre tem nũ käm nathi; paramtu gai kāle bilādāe mārelā kūkdā nū māms tene taiyar karelũ che, te māre māte lai āv, 'In the town of M. is a housewife R., go to her. She has cooked and prepared two pigeons for me. But tell her that I do not need these. However, she has prepared the meat of a cock killed by a cat yesterday; bring me that (Kapadia 1941: 128). - No discussion about taking away the animal's legitimate food (WB).
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with punishment in hell, as 'eating meat', we may be allowed to understand it literally as 'eating carrion'. But in Dasaveyāliya 12,7 it belongs to the proper qualities of the good monk that he is a-majja*mamsâsi amaccharī ya (Schubring: '[he should) not (drink] liquor nor eat meat, and she should] not [be] envious (of any one who does so]'), and in Süyagada II 2,72 in a similar context monks are called a-majjamamsâsiņo. In Uttarajjhāyā 5, 9 and 7,5–7 consuming alcohol and meat appear in two partly verbatim congruous lists of the gross sins of ignorant worldlings.36
Finally, in chapter 19 (14) of the same text, a youth justifies his resolution to renounce the world by depicting to his parents, who want to dissuade him from renouncing worldly life, the torments of hell which he had endured in former births for the sins of worldly life; thereby he says in vs 69f.:
You like flesh in pieces and roasted: I was forced (in hell) to eat again and again my own fire-coloured (i.e. bloody raw) flesh. You like to drink brandy, rum, spirits and (like to eat) honey: I was forced (in hell) to drink blazing hot fat and blood.37
Here, too, the consumption of meat and alcohol are put together and repaid by infernal punishments accordingly.
Jain tradition itself states that the editing and recording of the canon did not take place until a full millennium after the death of the founder of the religion, namely in the beginning of the sixth century, at the Council of Valabhī. It has long been known and
In the German original wrongly: amaccha (WB). 36 5,9: himse bāle musāvāī māille pisune sadhe / bhunjamāṇe suram mamsam
seyam eyam ti mannai (Jacobi: 'An ignorant man kills, lies, deceives, calumniates, dissembles, drinks liquor, and eats meat, thinking that this is the right thing to do'). 5, 9a-7, 52, 5, 90= 7,5€! 7, 7: aya-kakkara-bhoi ya tundille (so! Charpentier wrongly writes: tundille] ciya-lohie / āuyam narae kankhe jahāesam va elae, (Jacobi: He eats crisp goat's meat, his belly grows, and his veins swell with blood - but he gains nothing but life in hell, just
as the ram is only fed to be killed for the sake of a guest'). 37 tuham piyai mamsāĩ khandaim sollagāni ya / khavio mi sa-mamsāí aggi-vannai
'negaso || tuham piyā surā sīhū merao ya mahūņi ya / paio mi jalantīo vasão ruhiraņi ya. Jacobi's translation 'poisoned meat' rests on the wrong reading visamamsăim. Charpentier prints khāvio misamamsaim and gives in his commentary long elucidations on misa, which can be disposed of by correct word-separation. A glance at the parallel põio mi of vs 70 should have shown him that mi = asmi (and consequently samamsaim = sva-māmsāni).
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acknowledged that in the Jain canon ancient and very old sections stand side by side with young and very recent ones. Indeed, more than a few parts of the canon date far back to the time when, as we shall soon see, vegetarianism had to a large extent asserted itself also among the Hindus. The passages just presented which condemn meat-consumption can in no way shake the testimony of the three dealt with at the very beginning, in which we may rather see very important testimonies from the oldest period of the Jain tradition, - testimonies whose credibility is substantially supported by Buddhist parallels. Yet this is not all; indeed the consistency, reduced to absurdity, with which the Jain monk tries to practise ahimsā, allows us to understand particularly clear the apparent inconsistency of his flesh-eating.
Jainism teaches what one could call a total animism: all of nature is animated; not only animals and plants, but also the elements earth, water, fire and air consist of countless elementary individual souls. 38 As for the monk ahimsā is extended to these, for example, the prohibitions on [15] splashing and heating water, handling fire, and using a fan, which would hurt the arial souls.39 It goes without saying that the acceptance and consumption of every animated (sa-citta) nourishment is prohibited to him. 'Someone else must therefore,' as Schubring strikingly puts it, 'have first taken away its life.'40 This
Ids good even of water which the monk does not heat himself, but may only drink when it is made lifeless by boiling. 41
The rule observed even today makes it easier for the Indologist, for example, who visits lain monks in remote regions, to get boiled drinking water than elsewhere in India. The monk can thus eat or drink practically nothing, unless by its killing a layman has violated ahimsā, and then there is indeed no fundamental difference between the use of water boiled by others, plants cooked by others or the flesh of animals killed by others. In view of this, the above (p. [7f.)) cited condition of the Buddha concerning flesh and fish certainly holds good quite universally: the Jain monk may accept nothing at all as alms which has been purchased, fetched, prepared, etc. for him alone. The alms prepared 'for him personally who is expected42 is called uddesiya, which exactly corresponds to the Buddhist uddissa
holds
38 Schubring 2000 & 104f. 39 Dasaveyāliya, ch. 3 and 4. 40 Schubring 2000 & 154. 41 It is called then udaga-viyada, i.e. 'water modification'. 42 Schubring 2000 & 154.
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katam. Through an exhaustive casuistry of conditions, the nonobservance of which makes the offering unacceptable, the monk is thus safe-guarded against any ever so indirect and remote participation in the taking of life.
At the same time, the essential nature of ahimsā becomes quite clear here: originally it has nothing to do with ethics, as we understand it, but is a magic-ritualistic taboo on life which should not be destroyed in any form whatsoever.43 That this is largely valid even nowadays also for Hinduism, as is shown in Katherine Mayo's famous book Mother India', where the modern practice (amply depicted and condemned by Gandhi in the sharpest of terms) in which strict vegetarianism and the outraged refusal to shorten the most horrible mortal agony of a cow can be mixed with abominable cruelty to animals on an everyday basis 44 and with the most miserable dairy farming. When a Jain monk lives sinlessly merely as a result of the transgression of the layman, it is after all the same egoism which in ancient Buddhism concentrates the whole energy of a monk on working on his own emancipation and makes the (16] behaviour of the monk towards his fellow human beings subordinate to the viewpoint of promoting his efforts towards his own deliverance, in other words, the egoism against which Mahāyāna Buddhism later sets its altruistic ideal of deliverance for all of mankind. The fact that it was only important for the Jain monk not to offend ahimsā himself, while profiting from the transgression by others without a second thought, has modern parallels too, not only those in the practice of Sherpas and Burmese Buddhist monks outlined above (p. (5f.)). So, we may not be outraged so easily or mock, when the pious Hindu, often without any scruples, sells his cow to the Muslim butcher.
Now let us turn from Buddhists and Jains to the brahmins. With regard to them, the gradual rise of ahimsā and its vegetarian
43 Schmidt 1968: 627 remarks that Alsdorf does not explain this (WB). 44 For instance by overloading beasts of burden through greed of grain
(Williams 1973. 674. (atibhārâropana], [atibhāra-vahana] and 288-90. Hemacandra, Trio X 3, 60 describes ascetics hitting with sticks cattle which eat the grass of their huts: tāpasās te gās tā yastibhir atādayan; at X 3,89ff. villagers starve a bull, and at X 3,329 at a chariot race bulls are urged on with a goad with iron spikes: prajanârābhir īrayan ... a-krpas tāv avāhayat. See also Mette 1991: 126f. = 2009: 141f.; Bruhn 2007: 64 and Bollée 2006: 59ff. 'In religious practice and scriptural sources, there was failure to prohibit outright abuse of animals' (Sridhar and Bilimoria 2007: 316); and Balbir 2009a: 812 et passim. As early as RV X 85, 43f. Sūryā is urged to love animals (WB).
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consequence is particularly well illustrated in the pertinent section of the 'Lawbook of Manu'. In reading this, it is to be borne in mind that, in this most authoritative code of Indian customs and laws, a fundamental change of view and custom has found expressio the effect that the old and new are, not infrequently, simply placed in juxtaposition to, or rather after, each other, regardless of the flagrant contradictions resulting from it. A well-known example is perhaps that of the rules for conduct in the levirate,45 the custom familiar also outside India, attested to in the Indian epics, amongst other texts, according to which the brother of a man who died in childless wedlock begets by his sister-in-law the offspring which is so necessary for the sacrifices to the fathers.
The changed view, whereby a wife is not permitted to have intercourse with a man after the death of her husband, from which came the well-known prohibition of widow-remarriage and, as extreme, the practice of widow-burning, to such a view the levirate became offensive in the highest degree. One dares not, however, simply do away with the old rule. It is faithfully imparted in Manu 9,59; then again follow four stanzas (60–63) which manifestly try to limit the custom and make it less offensive: it is determined that after the procreation of one son, intercourse with the sister-in-law has to be broken off and that, when it is pursued out of sensuality, both partners forfeit their caste. According to a later passage (9, 143f.) the second son begotten in this way is even disinherited. Then five stanzas follow abruptly (9, 64-68), which condemn the levirate in the sharpest of tones and bluntly prohibit it. It is a custom fit for cattle, [17] which does not find any support in the sacred texts, and had catastrophic consequences when practised by humans in ancient times.
Considered critically and historically, the apparently juxtaposed and contradictory regulations become successive stages of historical development and exactly the same holds true of the section on meateating in Manu.
The stanzas 5-25 in chapter 5 give the numerous and complex regulations regarding forbidden and permitted foods, which in every lawbook take a significant place. Vegetables, especially leek, garlic, onions and mushrooms, also belong to the dishes forbidden not only under specific circumstances (slightly sour or stale, mixed with impure substances, etc.), but forbidden at all. Above all there
45 Cf. Bühler's translation in 1886: xciv.
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is a long list of animals which cannot be eaten; it varies considerably with the different authors. Such an enumeration naturally implies that other animals could indeed be eaten, and this is emphasized by the fact that general prohibitions are restricted by explicit permission to eat certain species of animals. The most important example is an old stanza which permits the consumption of five five-clawed animals. Heinrich Lüders has followed it through the entire legal literature, the epics and the Buddhist Pali literature. 46 Here it is only about the distinction between 'kosher' and 'non-kosher' meat; the consumption of meat as such is presumed as self-evident. 47 Still there is no question of vegetarianism.48 [18]
Just as with the levirate, a second stage of conflict follows this first stage of the still undisputed old views, one of compromises between old and new. Here, too, the newly arising opinions confront the strong powers of inertia of tradition; indeed they are, in this case, in actual fact wholly invincible, since in the brahmanic religion bloody animal sacrifices play a central role. To its fully correct and only thus magically effective execution belongs not only the killing of the sacrificial victim but also the ritual enjoyment of its flesh.
46 Lüders 1940: 175ff. 47 A misconception occurring time and again up to this day is when, for
example, Jolly 1896: 157, perceives in the determinations of kosher and non-kosher animals 'remnants of a laxer interpretation of ahimsă which declares certain animals to be edible'. Accordingly the triumphal procession of ahimsā had consisted in a gradual extension of the ban on killing from only some to more and more species of animals. With this the historical development is wholly misunderstood. For ahimsā there cannot be any fundamental distinction between particular species of animals. Conversely, we do find regulations regarding the purity and impurity of animals among many peoples (e.g. the Jews), who know nothing at all of ahimsā. The distinction between pure and impure animals and the ban on killing based on ahimsă have originally and historically nothing at all to do with each other. Inevitably, however, these were (and from that stems, in part, the misconception) later combined with one another by the Indians, whereby the old rules on pure and impure and the new ones totally banning killing, or restricting it to ritual occasions, as will be shown soon (p. (191), were brought into line with each other in such a way as to also restrict the consumption of meat still conditionally permitted to 'kosher' animals. - Hemacandra calls Manu's lawbook a
himsa-śāstra (Williams 1963: 70; WB). 48 Of ahimsă only indirectly in one passage (Manu 5, 22) which permits (or
prescribes) the brahmins the killing of kosher animals and birds for offering and for the sustenance of relations; the passage will concern us later (p. [27]).
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We note only provisionally that it was precisely cattle which were considered the most important traditional offering.
Moreover, it was not only about the sacrifice, but also, for example, about the sacred ancient rule according to which an ox or goat is to be slaughtered for a brahmin or a noble guest:49 so familiar and solemn a rule that the expression go-ghna 'cow-killer' is transmitted to us as a synonym of the words for 'guesť. 50 Therefore, because it was now impossible to question the ancient sacrifices, it only remained to postulate that the ban on killing and meat-eating did not hold true in all cases where the ritual requires both; this was made easier, as we shall see, by the ancient doctrine that killing for sacrifice is not killing.
Exactly this is found in another section in Manu, of 18 stanzas (5,27-44), the unsystematic arrangement, repetitions and inconsistencies of which clearly characterizes it as a compilation of disparate materials. That this section cannot at all be actually (19) reconciled with the preceding is shown by the illogicality of a transitional verse (5, 26), patched in between, which announces that after the 'completely imparted' (!~) rules on permitted and forbidden dishes, now the ones on allowed and prohibited meat-eating will follow51 - as if meat had not also been a dish and as if it had not previously time and again been about forbidden meat.
With varying shifts of accent in the new section, the fact of meateating being permitted at ritual occasions is again and again
49 ŚpBr. 3, 4, 1, 2: atithir vā esa etasyâgacchati yat somaḥ krītas, tasmā etad yatha
rajñe vā brāhmaṇāya vā mahôkşam vā mahājam vā pacet. Ait.Br. 3, 4, 6: ... ātithyam kriyate. 'gnim manthanti some rājany ägate. tad yathậivādo manusyarāja āgate 'nyasmin vârhaty ukṣāņam vā vehatam vā kşadanta, evam asmā etat kşadante yad agnim manthanty; agnir hi devânām paśuḥ. Vasiştha IV 8: athậpi brāhmaṇāya vā rājanyāya vâbhyāgatāya mahôkşānam vā mahâjam vā paced, evam asyâtithyam kurvantîti. Sankh. grhyas. 2, 15, 1: sannām ced arghyānām anyatama āgacched, go-paśum ajam annam vā yat samānyatamam manyeta, tat kuryān; nāmāmso 'rghaḥ syāt (!-). Yājñav. 1.109: mahôkşam va mahâjam vā śrotriyā yöpakalpayet. Cf. further Aśv. gļhyas.1, 24, 30ff.; Pāraskaragshyas. 1, 3, 26f. - Both parallels cited from SpBr. and Ait.Br. can hold good as confirmation of Thieme's finding in 1957: 90, corroborated by other materials, that 'through all the essential particulars of its form and its process' the Vedic sacrifice is 'defined as a stylistic banquet'. (Cf. Schlerath 1960: 129ff.) Thus, historically considered, the slaughter of a cattle for the
guest was the model for the cow sacrifice. 50 Pāṇini 3, 4, 73. 51 etad uktam dvijātīnām bhaksyabhaksyam a-beşatah / māmsasyâtah pravaksyāmi
vidhim bhakşaņa-varjane.
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confronted with its reprehensiveness under other circumstances.52 As to this, we read with special interest in vs 32 that meat-eating at sacrifices for deities and fathers is not a transgression, no matter whether the meat was bought, slaughtered by oneself or donated by someone:53 unmistakenly an argument with the Buddhist and Jain views about qualified permission to eat meat which we have come across above (p. [7]). The categorical contention that killing for sacrifice is not killing appears twice: 5, 44 'One should regard the injury to moving and immovable creatures, which the Veda has prescribed for certain occasions, as non-injury,'54 and vs 39: 'Svayambhū himself created the animals for the sake of sacrifice; the sacrifice serves the welfare of the whole world; therefore, killing for sacrifice is not killing."5
155
In order to ensure the correct execution of important ceremonies which are threatened by ahimsā, stanza 35 even threatens heavy punishment for the rejection of ritually prescribed flesh-eating: the concerned in question will be reborn twenty-one times as [20] a sacrificial animal.56 On the other hand, doubts are appeased by the doctrine that a high rebirth be ensured to the sacrificed animal as well as to the sacrificer.57 In one stanza (37) a substitute animal appears out of ghee or flour.58
52 Vs 31: Meat-eating for the purpose of sacrifice is divine custom, otherwise it is a demonic (rākṣasa) one; 33: except in times of emergency (apadi), flesheating is only permissible according to precept (vidhina); he who eats meat not in keeping with the regulations will after death be eaten by the animals killed by him; 34: extra-ritual flesh-eating is punished after death more severely than animal-killing out of greed; 36: a brahmin must and is allowed to eat only sacrificial animals consecrated with mantras; 38: whoever kills an animal other than for the purpose of sacrifice will be killed in future rebirths as many times as the animal had hair; 41: animalkilling is exclusively permissible when entertaining a guest (!) and at sacrifices for the gods and fathers; 43: in none of the three stages of life (student, householder, forest-dweller) nor in emergencies should one commit an injury not sanctioned by the Veda.
53 krītva svayam vâpy utpadya parôpahṛtam eva vā devān pitṛmś cârcayitva khadan mamsam na dusyati.
54 ya veda vihita himsa niyatâsmimś carâcare | ahimsam eva tām vidyāt.
55 yajñârtham paśavaḥ sṛṣṭaḥ svayam eva Svayambhuva | yajño 'sya bhutyai sarvasya, tasmad yajne vadho 'vadhah.
56 niyuktas tu yathânyāyam yo māmsam nâtti mānavaḥ sa pretya paśutām yāti sambhavan ekavimśatim.
57 40: osadhyaḥ paśavo vṛkṣās tiryañcaḥ pakṣiņas tatha | yajñârtham nidhanam prāptäh präpnuvanty ucchritiḥ punah; 42: esv artheṣu pasun himsan vedatattvârthavid dvijaḥ / ātmānam ca paśumś câiva gamayaty uttamam gatim.

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In addition, just at the beginning of the section, the partaking of meat is permitted, apart from ritual occasions, when someone's life is endangered as well as in the case of feeding brahmins. 59 Then follow three stanzas, which proclaim, somewhat out of context, what we would call the natural right of mankind to partake of meat: the divine order of creation has destined all animate and unanimate nature to be nourishment for the breath of life (28); the inanimate is nourishment for the animate; animals without fangs are nourishment for those with fangs, as are those without hands for those with hands; the timorous for the brave (29).61 The eater who eats edible beings every day does not commit an offence, because the creator himself has created living beings to eat and be eaten (30).62
Then in complete contradiction, not only to these stanzas but also to everything preceding them, follows a third section of eleven stanzas (44–55), which explicitly appeals to the rule of ahimsā, and unconditionally brands any partaking of meat as immoral, and praises the merit of a total commitment to vegetarianism in the highest terms. Here is the stanza already cited in the beginning (p. [5]), which states that no flesh can be obtained without violence to living beings, wherefore meat is to be shunned; and - like a polemic against the above-mentioned vs 32 (flesh consumption in connection with a sacrifice to gods and fathers (21) is not an offence, no matter if the meat is purchased, slaughtered by oneself or given as a gift) - vs 51 reads "The one sanctioning (the killing), the carver, slaughterer, buyer, seller, cook, servant and consumer - they are all killers.'63
As if to weaken, at least to some extent, the all too glaring inconsistencies between these requirements of uncompromising
58 kuryād ghrta-paśum sange kuryät pista-paśum tathā /na tv eva tu vrthā hantum
pasum icchet kadācana. - '(Images of) animal pairs out of flour' (mithunānām ca yathôpapādam piştasya ...) Sankh. Gșhyas. 4, 19; cf. Oldenberg 1878:
156.
59 proksitam bhakşayen māmsam brāhmaṇānām ca kamyayā / yathā-vidhi niyuktas
tu prāņānām eva câtyaye. 60 prāṇasyânnam idam sarvam Prajāpatir akalpayat / sthāvaram jangamam câiva
sarvam prāṇasya bhojanam. 61 carānām annam a-carā, damstrinām apy a-damstrinah /a-hastāś ca sa-hastānām,
śūrāņām câiva bhīravah. 62 nâttâ dusyaty adann ādyan prāņino 'hany ahany api / dhātrâiva srstā hy ădyās
ca pranino 'ttara eva ca. 63 anumantā visasitā nihantā kraya-vikrayī / samskartā côpahartā ca khādakaś cêti
ghātakāḥ.
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ahimsā vegetarianism64 and the preceding discussion, there finally follows one last stanza (56), which testifies, alone through the inclusion of the themes of alcohol and sexuality, that, properly speaking, it belongs to another context: 'There is no offence in the consumption of flesh, intoxicating beverages and sexual intercourse; that is in fact the (natural) conduct of living beings; however, abstinence brings great rewards!'65
The Manusmộti is not only the most esteemed but also the oldest of the classical metrical lawbooks, the so-called Dharmaśāstras, which form the second layer of Indian law literature and whose origin is fixed approximately from the second century BCE until a few centuries CE. Prior to these legal textbooks is the oldest stratum of scriptures in prose with verse insertions, the so-called Dharmasūtras and they are followed by the commentaries and the great medieval collections, the Nibandhas, whose number is occasionally augmented by the learned pandits even today.
If we now first look back from Manu to the Dharmasūtras, it becomes apparent that, in these branches of Vedic literature from the three stages which we ascertained in Manu, essentially only the first is represented. Everywhere in the context of the detailed and complicated rules for permitted and forbidden meals appear lists of edible and non-edible animals, and in many places, meat eating is clearly presumed to be normal.66 By contrast, not only is the third stage of the demand for uncompromising vegetarianism missing, but also even the second confrontation [22] between ahimsā and animal-sacrifice.67 This applies without restriction to the very probably pre-Buddhistic sūtras of Baudhāyana and Āpastamba.68
64 Only vs 52 does strictly speaking not belong here, but to the previous
section, because the assertion that there is no worse offender than the one who tries to augment his own flesh by means of that of someone else is weakened by the addition: 'without worshipping fathers (or) gods' (an
abhyarcya pitsn devān), which, of course, again exempts the sacrifices. 65 Na māmsa-bhaksane doso... nivrttis tu maha-phalā. The stanza is quoted by
Hemacandra 141,58f. on Mallişeņa vs 23 and referred to by Balbir 2009. In Schmidt 1968: 628 this stanza is added to put the discussion into the proper context - that of the renunciatory way of life which is the ideal of
the brahmin (WB). 66 Cf. Baudh. II 4,7;6, 2; 11, 15 (forest ascetics can live on flesh torn by beasts
of prey, in addition III 3, 6); 12, 8; III 1, 13, and 4, 1 (no flesh in case of a
special vow); Apast. I 17, 15 and 19; II 17, 26–18, 3; Vas. XIV 12. 67 See also Baudh. II 17, 29; 18, 2; III 3, 19 from which follows that ahimsā
belongs to the special rules respectively to the vows for ascetics and forest hermits, and therefore is demanded only for them.

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Matters are somewhat but only apparently different in the case of Vasiştha. Illustrating this requires a closer investigation of several passages in the text.
Excursus: Vasiştha and Manu In Vas, numerous stanzas are found which stand in similar or only slightly deviating form in our Manu text69 without being shown as citations from Manu.70 Alongside these, Manu' or 'the Mānava' is again explicitly quoted eleven times and some of these citations, but by no means all, reappear in our Manu. As is well-known, Bühler took this as proof that the Manusmộti did, as Max Müller had mooted, originate from an old, not preserved Mānavadharmasūtra. The principal and essential proof of this is the passage Vas. IV 5–8.
After in IV 4, truth, angerlessness, generosity, ahiņsā and procreation have been enumerated as required by all the four Varņas (sarveşām satyam a-krodho dānam ahimsā prajananam ca) the text continues:
5 6
7
pity-devatâtithi-pūjāyām apy eva paśum himsyād iti Mānavam. madhu-parke ca yajñe ca pity-daivata-karmaņi atrâiva ca paśum himsyān nânyathêty abravīn Manuḥ. nâkrtvā prāņinām himsām māmsam utpadyate kvacit, na ca prāņi-vadhaḥ svargyas, tasmād yāge vadho 'vadhaḥ. athôpi, brāhmaṇāya vā rājanyāya vâbhyāgatāya mahôkşāņam vā mahâjam vā paced; evam asmā ātithyam kurvantîti.
8
The Mānava says: Only in the reverence of ancestors, gods and guests may one violate an animal.
[23] At a madhu-parka (i.e. in hospitality), in sacrifices and during rites in honour of ancestors - only on such occasions may one violate an animal, otherwise not, so said Manu.
68 The same is true for Gautama's sūtras, which indeed, provided Meyer
1927: VII and 253ff. is right, would be placed much later, long after Manu. 69 Bühler (SBE XIV, p. XX notes 1 and 2) counts 41 such stanzas; the list in
note 1 (in which II 10 should read II 30, and XXV should be XXVI) could
be completed by parts of stanzas. 70 On the whole, the majority are not recognisable as quotations, but a
number of them is preceded by the customary remark athậpy udāharanti, or they are at least followed by an iti which does not occur in the Manu text.
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One does not obtain flesh without injuring living beings, but the killing of living beings does not lead to heaven; therefore, the killing for sacrifice is not killing.
Moreover, one must cook a big ox or a big goat for a Brahman or Ksatriya coming (on a visit); in this way one shows hospitality to him.
Bühler comments on this passage:71
All the four sūtras must be taken as a quotation, because the particle iti, 'thus', occurs at the end of IV, 8, and because the identity of sūtra 6 with Manu V, 41, as well as the close resemblance of sūtra 7 to Manu V, 48, shows that the quotation is not finished with sūtra 5. If we accept this explanation, we have in our passage the usual arrangement followed in the Dharma-sūtras. First comes the prose rule, next the verses which confirm it, and finally a Vedic passage on which both the rule and the verses rest ... If it is thus necessary to admit that Vasiştha's quotation is taken from a Mānava Dharma-sūtra, the agreement of the doctrine taught in the quotation and of a portion of the text with those of our Manu-smrti shows further that this Dharmasūtra must have been the forerunner of our metrical law-book.
To this it has to be said in the first place that the iti after sūtra 8 cannot in any way prove that the Manu citation is complete up to there; indeed one must rather regard the iti Mānavam of vs 5 as a distinct mark of the end of the quotation, and the ity abravīn Manuḥ of vs 6 as the concluding mark of another quotation, while the iti of vs 8 marks the end of a third citation, whether it deals now (as I believe) with an inaccurate quotation of the passages mentioned above p. [18] note 1 from ŚpBr. and AiBr. or, as Bühler (SBE XIV, p. XIX) presumes, with a (more precise) citation from a ‘hitherto unknown Brāhmaṇa'. There is no clue at all that Vasiştha also quotes this citation from the Mānava'.
If one further holds the sūtras 5 and 6 side by side, one cannot doubt that the second is a versification of the first; one may rather
71 SBE XXV, p. xxxi; cf. also SBE XVIII-XX, 26 note 5; SBE XXV, p. XXII; Jolly
1896: 12, 17; Winternitz III, 2 1965: 585f.
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doubt that the author or compiler of the Mānava himself has let his own sutra be followed by a self-quoting versification. Altogether one sees that this stanza is not only accommodated in our Manusmrti but also in Sankh. grhyas. 2, 16, 1- there in similar connection to the one in Vasistha; thus one may hold it at least [24] much more probable that Vas. does not quote this stanza from the 'Manava', but, if not from either of the two already mentioned sources, then from the stock of popular dharma-stanzas.
Even more informative is a comparison of Vas. IV 7 with Manu 5, 48. Not only Bühler (SBE XIV 27 note) but also Jolly (1896: 157) assume without any ado that the closing pada of Vas. 'therefore, killing for sacrifice is not killing' becomes substituted in Manu 5, 48 by the pada 'therefore, one must forgo flesh', 'to suit the ahimsa doctrines of the compilers of the metrical smrtis' [English in the original] as Bühler says. It is astonishing that neither he nor Jolly are scandalized by the crass illogicality of the Vas. verse: Certainly the second half of the stanza only lets itself be logically justified if at all provided one makes a quite essential addition to the text, which is not, in itself, foreseeable: 'killing of living beings does not lead to heaven - but, as is well-known, sacrifice does - hence, killing for sacrifice is not killing.' This somewhat entangled argumentation2 could apply if, in the first half of the verse, something about the necessity of the sacrifice, or even a mention of sacrifice were included; yet instead of that, the text says: 'No meat is obtained by one anywhere without injuring living beings.' It is very clear that after the interpolation but killing animals does not lead to heaven', the only logical conclusion is the one from Manu 5, 48: 'Therefore must one forgo meat.'
It appears to me that Manu 5, 48 is undoubtedly the genuine, original form of the stanza - with the most radical, most advanced ahimsa standpoint! - whereas Vas. IV 7 - a vindication of animalsacrifice! - is a secondary, meaning inverting distortion. When one sees that the pada 'therefore killing for sacrifice is not killing' is likewise to be found in Manu, and as an indeed quite meaningful conclusion of the stanza 5, 39, discussed previously (p. [19]), the conjecture can hardly be dismissed that the Vas. stanza is taken directly from our Manu text, and represents a clumsy conglomerate
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72 Meyer 1927: 46 'Yet indeed killing for sacrifice is not killing, because the killing does not lead the killer to heaven, but leads the sacrifice to heaven. Hence see, e.g. Vas. IV 7; Manu V 39-44... See also Doniger 1976: 96 quoting Raghavan 1962: 356; Hiltebeitel 2001: 203 (WB).

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of 5, 48 and 5, 39. Citation from our Manu text is, therefore, not improbable for Vas. IV 6, too. The numerous common Vas. and Manu stanzas and stanza-parts should be once again examined in the light of these suppositions. Already now it may be shown at least in two cases, that our Manu text is clearly more correct or older than that of Vas. [25]
1. In Manu 8, 98, dealt with by Lüders (1917 = 1940: 439), Vas. reads kanyânṛte instead of paśv-anṛte which, as Lüders (1940: 444) confirms, is unoriginal against paśv-anṛte. 2. Ibid., p. 441 Lüders writes:
Although it is certain in general that the versified text-books are later than those composed in prose, it appears to me to be certain that the authors of the sutras have often refashioned old memorial verses into prose ... In numerous cases, the original metrical character of the sutras still distinctly gleams through; in others it results from the content or by comparison with aphoristic literature.73
If, in recollection of these sentences, one reads in Vas. VIII 4f.: sayam āgatam atithim nâparundhyāt/nâsyân-aśnan gṛhe vaset, then one can easily suppose that these two sūtras are nothing more than one śloka, of which the third pada and the last four syllables of the second (perchance 'kadācana'?) have been omitted. This supposition is confirmed by the Manu verse (3, 105) corresponding to the content, in which the sutra Vas. VIII 5 appears as the last pāda: a-pranodyo 'tithiḥ sayam sūryôḍho gṛha-medhinā/kāle prāptas tv a-kāle vā nâsyân-aśnan gṛhe vaset. At the same time, we can with greatest probability take from this stanza the missing third pada between Vas. VIII 4 and 5, since a little later we read as sūtra 8 the sloka: nâikagrāmīna atithir vipraḥ sāmgatikas tathā/kāle prāpto a-kāle vā nâsyânaśnan grhe vaset. Bühler translates this thus:
73 'So gewiß im allgemeinen. die versifizierten Lehrbücher jünger sind als die in Prosa abgefaßten, so gewiß scheint es mir zu sein, daß die SūtraVerfasser so und so oft alte Memorialverse in Prosa aufgelöst haben... In zahlreichen Fällen schimmert der ursprünglich metrische Charakter von Sūtras noch deutlich durch, in anderen ergibt er sich aus dem Inhalt oder durch Vergleich mit der Spruchliteratur' (WB).

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A Brāhmaṇa who lives in the same village (with his host) and a visitor on business or pleasure (are) not (called) guests. (But a guest), whether he arrives at the moment (of dinner) or at an inopportune time, must not stay in the house of a (householder) without receiving food.
But for the completion '(but a guest)' there is no occasion or justification at all; the only possible translation is rather: 'A fellow villager is not a guest, and neither is a sāmgatika brahmin. Whether he comes on time or untimely, he must not spend the night in his house without eating.'
—
That two absolutely incompatible stanza-halves are brought together here is corroborated by the stanza Manu 3, 103: nâikagrāmīņam atithim vipram samgatikam tathā/upasthitam gṛhe vidyad bhārya yatrâgnayo 'pi vā,74 'One must not consider as a guest a fellow villager or a samgatika brahmin who has turned up in the house, or where(else) are wife and fires.' Thus we have in Vas. VIII 8 a sloka [26] whose two halves are not compatible with each other; however, they fit perfectly to the respective other halves of two Manu slokas, 3, 103 and 105, but the last pada of the Vas. sloka appears once again there where it is really pertinent - Vas. VIII 5 - and where also the third pada would be pertinent and can be found in Manu. (Moreover, one should note that in Vas. 8 the transposition of the accusative into the nominative has led to the false sandhi: grāmīna atithir, which therefore proves the originality of the Manu text, while reciprocally in Manu, the abnormal sandhi: prāpto a-kāle75 has evidently been smoothed out secondarily to prāptas tv a-kāle.) The circumstances here are not unlike those in the case of Vas. IV 7, only rather more complicated, and it is difficult not to believe in a rather awkward performance on the part of a Vas.-compiler or, more probably, an interpolator having worked with our Manu text.
We observe a similar distortion as in Vas. VIII 8 again in stanza Vas. XI 34, concerning our theme:
niyuktas tu yatiḥ śrāddhe daive vā māmsam utsṛjet yavanti paśu-romāni tavan narakam rcchati.
74 The sloka appears again in Śārkh. gṛhyas. 2, 16, 3 with the variant viprosyâgatam eva ca instead of vipram samgatikam tathā.
75 Führer wrongly prints: prapte.

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To begin with, the first line is no doubt corrupt. It is nonsensical that the determination of the penalty for the refusal to eat meat at an ancestor sacrifice or one to the deities ought to pertain precisely and only for a yati; and, above all, the first line must certainly be either a relative or conditional clause. As a matter of fact, it begins in Krtyakalpataru III 7 (GOS CXI p. 318), where the stanza from 'Yama' is cited, with the words: amantritas tu yaḥ śraddhe. One can then confidently correct the Vas. text in niyuktas tu yadi śraddhe. We now find an equivalent of the first line in Manu 5, 35:
niyuktas tu yathânyāyam yo māmsam nâtti mānavaḥ sa pretya paśutām yāti sambhavān ekavimśatim,
but we read a counterpart of the second in Manu three stanzas later (5, 38):
yavanti paśu-romāņi, tāvat-kṛtvo ha māraṇam vṛtha-paśu-ghnaḥ prāpnoti pretya janmani janmani.76
[27] Yajñ. 1, 180 corresponds to it as regards the contents:
vaset sa narake ghore dinani paśu-romabhiḥ sammitāni durācāro yo hanty a-vidhinā paśūn.
Yajn. thus confirms that the punishment according to the number of animal hairs belongs to the animal-killing outside the sacrifice, not (as with Vas.) to the refusal to eat meat on ritual occasions. One may conclude, therefore, that the Vas.-stanza represents a later insertion, in any case does not fit to the present context, because in Vas. it appears in a long section which exclusively concerns itself with the śrāddha, while in the stanza the text talks about the refusal to eat meat not only at the sacrifice offered to the dead but also at that to the deities (daive).
There remains a last Vas. passage on the theme of meat which indeed gives no cause for doubt that it is the direct source of two stanzas of our Manu text. Chapter XIV begins its exposition about permitted and forbidden foods (bhojyâbhojya) with numerous and
76 The Krtyakalpataru cites a contamination of this and the previous stanza from Hārīta: niyuktas tu yathā śrāddhe yas tu māmsam na bhakṣayet | yavanti paśu-romāni tavan narakam rcchati.

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involved rules as to from whom one may or may not accept food. It says: 14. na mțgayor işu-cāriņaḥ parivarjyam annam. 15. vijñāyate hi: Agastyo varşa-sāhasrike sattre mțgayām cacāra. tasyâsams tara-samayāḥ purodāśā mrga-pakşiņām prasastānām:
The food (given) by a hunter hunting with arrows is not to be refused for it is taught in the Veda): During a thousand years' Soma sacrifice, Agastya went on a hunt. He had sacrificial cakes consisting of the meat of kosher animals and birds.
It is clear that Manu 5, 22f. is versification hereof:
yajñârtham brāhmaṇair vadhyāḥ prasastā mụga-pakṣiṇaḥ bhrtyānām câiva vrtty-artham, Agastyo hy ācarat purā. babhūvur hi purodāśā bhakşyānām mrga-pakşiņām purāņeşv api yajñeșu brahma-kșatra-saveșu ca.
Brahmins are allowed to kill kosher animals and birds for sacrifice and for the subsistence of their dependents; indeed Agastya proceeded (thus) in the past. There were also sacrificial cakes prepared from edible animals and birds at the sacrifices of antiquity and those of brahmins and kşatriyas.
The versification is exceedingly clumsy and not understandable at all without the Vas. text. The disappearance of Agastya's hunt could be connected with the fact that in Manu 4, 212 the mrgayu is explicitly listed among those people from whom one may not accept food. However, the strange and factually false insertion (28] of the pāda: bhrtyānām câiva vrtty-artham is clarified with a glance at the śloka (XIV 13) immediately preceding in Vas.:
gurv-artham dāram ujjihīrṣann arcişyan devatâtithin sarvataḥ pratigrhṇīyān, na tu trpyet tataḥ svayam.
For the Guru (or) to support wife (and child) or to honour gods and guests, one may accept (something) from somebody, but one must not satiate oneself therefrom.
This stanza appears in the correct context, namely, under the prescriptions as to from whom one may accept something, in Manu
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4, 251, to which the Vas. pādas b-d literally correspond, but pāda a has the following form: gurūn bhrtyāmś côjihīrşan. It is a two-fold improvement of the Vas. text: the metrical irregularity of the ninesyllabled pāda is removed, and dāram standing as pars pro toto is replaced by the more comprehensive bhṛtyān.
The appearance of the full stanza Manu 4, 251 emphasizes that the removal of 'for Guru, wife (and children)' from Vas. XIV 13, and the change of the stipulation granting permission to accept from any giver to the permission to slaughter kosher animals is secondary. For the rest it is to be noted that the Vas.-passage neither discusses on ahimsā - quite the contrary! - nor does it belong to the discussion on bloody sacrifice. Only in the two Manu stanzas does the new problematic gently emerge (yet without any polemic!); but significantly enough they are not found in the section on discussion of sacrifice (5, 27-44), but in that on kosher and non-kosher foods and especially on animals.
To summarise:
From Bühler's showpiece, there remains only the short beginning, the citation Vas. IV 5 above, as evidence of a lost MānavaDharmasūtra as the source of our Manu, so that, in particular, the proof is lacking 'that the author of the Vasiştha Dharma-sūtra knew a treatise attributed to a teacher called Manu which, like all the other Dharma-sūtras, was partly written in aphoristic prose and partly in verse'. Whether Bühler's hypothesis, which Jolly 1896: 17f. has already described as fundamentally questionable, can still be maintained after the removal of this vital support would have to be clarified through a new examination of the relation between Vas. and Manu. Uncompromising vegetarianism is nowhere mentioned in Vas.; the passages which point to an argument between ahimsā and sacrifice are nearly all suspicious of being later insertions. It remains as the only point [29] the commandment, in IV 4 (alongside others), of ahimsā for all four social classes; then, in the subsequent sūtra of the Mānava citation, the ahimsā keyword occurring here is followed by the justification of animal-killing through ritual motives - yet indeed without any polemical note; it is Manu 5, 41 which first introduces the intensifying atraiva-nânyathā.
I certainly cannot give up the - naturally not strictly provable - suspicion that Vas. IV 4 could have originally been a sloka line;
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something like: sarveşām satyam a-krodho dānam prajananam tathā; ahimsā would then have been later inserted in a transposed prose form: the sūtras 5-8 would then have followed this subsequently inserted keyword. The suspicion is further nourished by the fact that, on the one hand, of the four virtues remaining after the elimination of ahimsā, each is especially characteristic of one of the four varņas: satya for the brahmins, a-krodha for the warriors, dāna for the Vaisyas, prajanana for the sūdras, the 'proletarians'; while, on the other hand, ahimsā is rather conspicuous as a demand on all the four classes, at least in olden times as that. Above all, however, what best corresponds to this suspicion and confirms it further is that we have recognised the distorting citations above in IV 6 and 7 of our Manu text.
However, even if we accept that ahimsā and the discussion of sacrifice, which are completely absent in Baudh. and Āpast., are noticeable in first traces in Vas., then it supports well the common presumption which places Vas. between the oldest Dharmasūtras and the Manusmrti;78 Meyer (1927: VII) dates Vas. in about the 4th century BCE.
If we now turn again to Manu in order to direct the view ahead on the contemporary and later legal texts, we notice straight away a work that indeed does not properly belong to the law texts but can and must be nevertheless counted in a certain sense as belonging to it, and whose close connection with the Manusmrti is wellknown:29 the Mahābhārata.
To be sure, the particularly rich material which the epic offers us can only be used [30] chronologically to a very limited degree since, as is well-known, in it pre-Buddhist, later and very late works stand alongside each other and, strictly speaking, the age of each of the countless building stones of the monstrous, labyrinthine and gigantic construction, differing by many hundreds of years, must be determined separately.
For our purposes, we may content ourselves with Oldenberg's statement80 that the Manusmrti apparently dates from approximately the same time as large sections of the Mahābhārata. With
77 Cf. the rule cited by Lüders 1951: 408 from the Mahābhārata for the
brahmin to always speak the truth (rta-vādī sadā ca syāt) and ibid.,
p. 410 making the sta and satya equal to the Brahman. 78 Cf. Jolly 1896: 6; Winternitz III 1963–5: 578f. 79 Cf. Bühler 1886: LXXIV-XC; Winternitz 1963–5: 587f. 80 Oldenberg (see 1903 entry) 1923: 187.
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these considerations, we can state that in the didactic portions of the epic8l the debate between animal-sacrifice and ahimsā, between meat-eating and vegetarianism is at a peak, which testifies to its topicality. It is neither possible nor necessary to present the entire material: naturally, the same arguments and formulas known to us from Manu are repeated many times over. Hence a selection should suffice which, above all, takes into account what is suitable to supplement that which is already known to us.82
In Vanaparvan (III 199), the 'pious hunter' (dharma-vyādha), a professional wildgame dealer makes a 38 stanzas-long plea for animal-killing and meat-eating to a brahmin. He initially clarifies that his really awful (ghora) profession is karma-ordained fate; similarly predestined is the killing, the killer being only the executing instrument. 83 Moreover, the animals killed and sold in their turn acquire religious merit in that they feed gods, guests, fathers, etc. with their flesh. Thus King Sibi also earned his way to heaven through the gift of his own flesh, and King Rantideva (wellknown through Kālidāsa's Meghadūta 45) who had 2,000 small livestock and 2,000 cows slaughtered daily attained matchless glory through his donations of meat-dishes. Beyond this, the Veda also lays down that plants, like animals, are designated to be food for the world84 – consequently, the appeal to natural law and the order of creation, [31] which we already know from Manu 5, 28–30.
Only after that does the appeal to animal-killing for the sacrifice prescribed by the Veda appear, whereby the sacrificial animal gains entry to heaven. Without the animal sacrifice no one would ever have chanced upon meat-eating!85 Meat-eating in ritual is not only sinless, it is to be looked upon as non-meat-eating, just as sexual
81 That in the old parts, the epic legend proper, hunting and meat-eating by
the heroes are a completely unproblematic matter hardly needs to be emphasized. On this and on meat-eating in the Mbh. in general see
Hopkins 1901: 377ff. 82 In the following, passages from Mbh. III and XII are cited according to
the critical Poona edition, from XIII and XIV, for which this has not yet come out, according to the Bombay edition, occasionally corrected with
the help of the Calcutta edition. 83 Vs 3: vidhinā vihite (v. I. hi hate) pūrvam nimitto ghātako bhavet. - Cf.
Biardeau/Malamoud 1976: 136 (WB). 84 Vs 5: osadhyo vīrudhaś câpi paśavo mrga-pakṣiṇaḥ / annâdya-bhūtā lokasya, ity
api śrūyate śrutih. 85 Vs 10: yadi nâivâgnayo, brahman, māmsa-kāmâbhavan pura / bhaksyam nâiva
bhaven (v.l. naivābhavan) māmsam kasyacit.
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intercourse with one's wife during the time of stu ('fertility') is not a breach of chastity.86 Once again, the dharma-vyādha returns to the fateful karmic conditionality of his profession: as a consequence of a curse, King Saudāsa had devoured even men. Giving up a karmadetermined profession is sin, its continuance merit. Yet one can remove and mitigate bad karma through generosity, honesty, obedience and hospitality to brahmins (and the dharma-vyādha tries to do this).
Then follow at last longer expositions which show the impossibility of consistent ahiņsā. Cultivation is counted as 'good' (sādhu), but the plough destroys living beings to a great extent.87 Seeds are also alive, e.g. rice grains,88 as well as plants and trees, which one cuts without much ado - the whole world is filled with living beings, which feed on each other.89 Knowingly or unknowingly, everyone kills living beings at every step; no one can avoid himsā; the zealous ascetic even can only curtail it at most.90 These last stanzas really read like an attempt to make clear to the Jain monks the absurdity of their exaggerated efforts for ahimsā.
What is, however, particularly worth noting, in this whole unsystematic, disorderly and not always logical sequence of arguments, is that no objection by the brahmin nor any refutation from the standpoint of ahimsā follows. One has the impression that the justification of the dharma-vyādha reflects a relatively early phase of the [32] ahimsā discussion and that agrees with the fact that we find
86 Vs 12: a-māmsâśī bhavaty evam, ity api śrūyate śrutih / bhāryām gacchan
brahmacārī rtau bhavati brāhmanah. 87 Vs 19: krşim sadhv iti manyante, tatra himsā parā smrtā / karşanto lāngalaiḥ
pumso ghnanti bhūmi-śayān bahūn / jīvān anyāmś ca bahuśas, tatra kim pratibhāti te? Just as XII 254, 44: bhūmim bhūmi-śayāmś câiva hanti kastham
ayo-mukham. 88 Cf. on this below, p. [39f.). 89 Vs 23f.: sarvam vyāptam idam, brahman, prāņibhiḥ prani-jīvanaih / matsyā
grasante matsyāmś câiva, tatra kim pratibhāti te? // sattvaih sattvāni jīvanti
bahudhā, dvija-sattama, / pranino 'nyonya-bhaksāś ca, tatra kim pratibhāti te? 90 Vs 28f.: ke na himsanti jīvān vai loke ‘smin, dvija-sattama?/ bahu samcintya,
iha vai nâsti kaścid ahimsakah // ahimsāyām tu niratā yatayo, dvija-sattama, kurvanty eva hi himsām te, yatnād alpatarā bhavet. - Schmidt 1968: 626 finds that in concentrating his attention on the history of vegetarianism Alsdorf has lost sight of the difference between ahimsā and vegetarianism and does not attempt to fix the point at which and the reason why vegetarianism became the main-stay of the ahimsa-doctrine, of which, according to Schmidt, vegetarianism is a popularized form (WB).
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ourselves in the Vanaparvan on the whole in one of the older parts of the epic.
Conversely, this corresponds to the fact that the most detailed treatment of the theme of ahimsā and vegetarianism is located in a notoriously very recent part of the Mbh., a tract of 157 stanzas in the Anušāsanaparvan (XIII 113–116; cr. ed. 114-117 (WB]) is clearly more advanced in its development towards the absolute recognition of ahimsā. Certainly there is here still less of an orderly and systematic structure or inner logic of the whole than in the defence of the dharma-vyādha; the squalid text is an entangled mess with contradictions and, in part, multiple also literal repetitions (besides a few more or less literal agreements with Manu). Yet it champions almost always the standpoint of uncompromising vegetarianism which also rejects the use of sacrificial meat. At the beginning of ch. 115, Yudhisthira indeed explicitly requests clarification of the contradiction between the ahimsā doctrine and the command of meat-use in the sacrifice for the ancestors (śrāddha), but in his answer thereon Bhīşma does not at all respond, and instead begins an enthusiastic eulogy of complete renunciation of meat.
There are not more then a scanty dozen stanzas scattered incoherently in different places which allow the generally restricted meat-eating on specific occasions.91 The Agastya story already known to us from Vas. and Manu appears twice here: in 115, 59f. it says:
Out of consideration for the well-being of creatures, the high-minded Agastya has, through his tapas, consecrated the wild animals to all the gods; in this manner, the rites related to the gods and the fathers are not left out, and the fathers pleased by being downright saturated with meat. 92
In 116, 15ff., however, Agastya becomes like an Indian St Hubert in that his consecration of wild animals serves to vindicate hunting as the general custom of the kşatriyas, who do not, therefore, sin
91 In Mbh. XIII 115, 45 meat-eating is signified as a pardonable offence:
prokşitâbhyukṣitam māmsam tathā brāhmaṇa-kāmyayā / alpa-dosam iha jñeyam, viparīte tu lipyate (cf. Manu 5, 27 ab; alpa-dosa, however, can really also
mean 'sinless'. 92 prajānām hita-kāmena tv Agastyena mahâtmanā / āraṇyāḥ sarva-daivatyāḥ
proksitās tapasā mrgaḥ // kriyā hy evam na hiyante pitr-daivata-samśritāḥ / prīyante pitaraś câiva nyāyato māmsa-tarpitāḥ.
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through the consumption of flesh obtained through their valour; as a very characteristic further vindication is added that hunting is always connected with the risk of one's life, and that the animal also has a chance to kill the hunter.93 [33]
This piece of genuine ksatriya-ethics operates as an extraneous body in the ever-new, exaggerated eulogy of ahimsā (the close of ch. 116 is really a hymn to it!); the threats of punishment for meat-eating, the promises of reward for meat-abstinence. Immediately after the vindication of the use of meat at the śrāddha through Agastya's consecration of wild animals follows in 115, 61ff. a section on the reward of even temporally limited meat-renunciation beginning with the guarantee that one year of meat-abstinence equals a hundred years of hardest asceticism; the core is comprised by a list of forty-six pre-historic kings who gained heaven and stay in glittering splendour in Brahmaloka as a reward for meat-abstinence during the bright half of the month of Kārttika. As a conclusion of the chapter, there follows a bombastic Śravanaphala ('benefit of hearing' (WB]). It is precisely this utterly arbitrary and senseless stringing together of names from mythology and legend - even Rantideva is again to be found here! – that is taken by the author of the Kệtyakalpataru as worth quoting. 94
When we stated above (p. [15]) that ahimsā has essentially nothing to do with ethics in our sense of the word but is a magical-ritualistic taboo on life, it is naturally not contradictory that the Indians, nevertheless, soon attributed to it the ethical foundation valid
93 ksatriyāņām tu yo drsto vidhis, tam api me srnu / vīryeņôpārjitam māmsam
yathā bhuñjan na duşyati / āranyāḥ sarva-daivatyāḥ sarvaśaḥ prokṣitā mțgāḥ 1/16|| Agastyena purā, rājan, mțgayā yena pūjyate / nâtmānam a-parityajya mrgayā nāma vidyate //17// samatām upasamgamya bhūtam hanyati hanti vā / ato rājarşayaḥ sarve mrgayām yānti, Bhärata //18|| na hi lipyanti pāpena na câitat pātakam viduḥ. The passage is cited in Křtyakalpataru III 313f. Thereby the offensive passive hanyati in 18a is eliminated through the
meaning-impairing reading bhūtam hanyeta mānavaḥ. 94 In III p. 324f. he cites, with numerous deviations from the concurrent text
of the Bombay and Calcutta editions, the vss 62-79 inclusive of vs 71, which is not at all appropriate here and thus clearly interpolated, and 79 which again extols the life-long entire abstinence from meat and honey. - Because the citations from the Mbh. are not identified in the GOS edition, the occurrences unmentioned so far are here specified (they all originate from XIII 115f.): p. 317:115, 52f.; 45; 116, 22c, d; 14 a, b; p. 324, first vs quoted:115, 16.
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even to this day. Little of it is to be sensed in Manu; it is all the more prominent in our Mbh. tract. Its chief guiding principle is ātmâupamya, to-respect-others-as-oneself; this yields our 'what you don't want others to do to you', or as 113,8 expresses it: 'One should not do to others what one abhors oneself.'95 The greater part of Adhyāya 113 deals with this theme, while [34] we find it furthermore modified in that there is nothing in this world one loves more than one's life. Therefore, one must exercise compassion towards others as with oneself.96 But whoever exercises compassion towards all creatures, on him will be bestowed compassion from them also: consistent ahimsā guards against each and every hazard.97
The critically decisive point of the ahimsā problem and the real stone of contention, however, remains, viz. the animal sacrifice. The Mokşadharma and the Anugītā98 show us the discussion on this in a succession of examples which run through the entire gamut of possibilities, so to speak, from successful defence of the Vedic tradition to its reinterpretation and its daring explicit rejection.
We find a full justification of the bloody offering, and one no longer refuted by its opponent, in Gokapilīya 'the story of Kapila and the cow'.99 On seeing a cow which is tethered to be slaughtered 100 for a guest doubts about the Veda dawn in the Rși Kapila. In order to dispel these, the Rși Syūmaraśmi possesses the cow and begins a debate with Kapila. On his question of whether, beyond the written
95 na tat parasya samdadhyāt, pratikülam yad ātmanah. 96 Mbh. XIII 116, 12: na hi prānāt priyataram loke kimcana vidyate / tasmăd dayām
naraḥ kuryad yathậtmani tathâpare. Similarly previously 115, 21: prāņā yathâtmano 'bhīstā bhūtānām api vai tathā; further 116, 26: prāna-dānāt param dānam na bhūtam na bhavisyati | na hy ātmanaḥ priyataram kimcid astîha
niscitam. 97 a-bhayam sarva-bhūtebhyo yo dadāti dayā-paraḥ | a-bhayam tasya bhūtāni
dadatîty anusuśruma || kşatam ca skhalitam câiva patitam klistam āhatam/ sarva-bhūtāni rakṣanti samesu visameșu ca // nainam vyāla-mrgā ghnanti na pisacā na rākşasah / mucyate bhaya-kāleșu mokşayed yo bhaye parān. Just as previously 115, 28f.: kāntāreşv atha ghoreșu durgeşu gahaneșu ca / rätrāv ahani sandhyāsu catvareșu sabhāsu ca // udyateṣu ca śastresu mrga-vyāla-bhayesu ca
| a-māmsa-bhakşaņe, rājan, bhayam anyair na gacchati. 98 The translation of both in Vier philosophische Texte des Mahabharatam'
further quoted as Deussen'. 99 Mbh. XII 268 cr. ed. (WB]; Deussen 1922: 440ff. - See Schreiner (1979: 301
note 20) who does not fully agree with Alsdorf (WB). 100 Thus Nīlakantha explains by quoting the passage Ait.Br. 3, 4, 6 repro
duced above on p. [18] note.
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tradition, there is something higher than ahimsā he extols the sacrifice and holds a discourse on its composition to which - just like daily nourishment (!) - all the animals and plants, beyond that, the entire world belong; everything is created for the sacrifice (29: yajñârthāni hi srsťāni); but whoever sacrifices believing that the sacrifice must be brought about without desire for reward 'injures nothing, kills nothing and does not hurt any one'.101
It was stated in vs 24 before that:
'Animals and men, trees and herbs desire for [35] heaven and no heaven is to be gained except by sacrifice, which Nīlakantha comments thus: “And thereby there is no sin in killing (himsā); on the contrary, (sacrifice) is for the sacrificial animals, etc. aspiring to heaven a support according to the text of the mantras (RV. 1, 162, 21): "Truly, thou diest not thereby, thou dost not come to grief. Thou goest to the gods by the wonted way." '102
We will examine the Rgveda stanza addressed to the sacrificed horse again below (p. [67]). The Rși speaking out of the cow closes with a confident assertion that one should sacrifice and allow sacrifice without worry: on the basis of Vedic authority heaven will be bestowed on the sacrificer, neither this nor the other world to the non-sacrificer. The discussion then turns to another question.
The same conclusion, in spite of its somewhat different course, has the concern of a conversation between a sacrificing priest (adhvaryu) and an ascetic (yati), who accuses him of hiņsā in the sacrifice of a ram (Mbh. XIV 28, Deussen 1922: 927ff.). The adhvaryu retorts promptly that the ram is not ruined but, according to the Veda, participates in heavenly bliss;103 its component parts will enter into the corresponding elements, the sun, etc., its life into heaven (cf. note below). The yati asks sarcastically if the sacrifice takes place for the good of the ram, then what purpose might it still have for the adhvaryu? Moreover, he should first of all go to the brother, father, mother and friend of the ram and obtain their consent
101 na hinasti hy ārabhate (v.l. nârabhate) nâbhidruhyati kimcana / yajño yastavya
ity eva yo yajaty a-phalêpsayā. 102 na câtra himsa-doso 'sti, pratyuta svargârthinām paśv-ādīnām 'na vā u etan
mriyase na risyasi devām id esi pathibhiḥ sugebhiḥ' iti mantra-varņād ayam
upakāra eva. 103 Vs 8: nâyam chāgo vinaśyati / śreyasā yoksyate jantur yadi śrutir iyam tathā.
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for the killing. 104 Finally he will, after the killing, only have the soulless body, like firewood without fire. In contrast to this, the yati energetically advocates the principle of ahimsā towards all beings (bhūta) and the realization thereof [36] here on earth (pratyakşam), not in a life hereafter (parokşam).
The answer of the adhvaryu could be directed to a Jain; it leads the ahimsā of the yati ad absurdum in that it employs the word used by him for 'being in its other common meaning, i.e. 'element':
You eat the olfactory qualities of the earth; you drink the flavours made from water; you see the colours of light; you feel the properties emerging from the air; you hear the tones stemming from the ether; you think thoughts with the mind - and you have (to be sure, indeed) the notion that all these elements are life. You have renounced the taking of life (but) you live in himsā! There is no activity (no life) without himsā - don't you think so, brahmin?105
The yati counters with explanations on the intransitory-transitory double nature of the ātman, which do not appear to fix as a rejoinder
104 Vs 12f.: atra tvām manyatām bhrātā pitā mātā sakheti ca l... evam
evânumanyerams, tān bhavan drastum arhati / teşām anumatam śrutvā ... This mocks the taking seriously the declared wish in the adhrigu-praisa ('call of the hotar upon the agnīdhra and other priests to start the sacrifice' (WB]) before the killing in a sacrifice: 'His mother, his father, his full brother must agree with him (i.e. his killing), as likewise his friend belonging to the same herd' (Ait.Br. 2,6,7 among others: anv enam mātā manyatām anu pitânu bhrātā sa-garbhyo'nu sakha sa-yūthyah). Cf. Schwab 1886: 102; Kane II/2 1974: 1121f. The preceding contentions of the adhvaryu about the entrance of the components of the ram into the elements etc. were cited
from the direct continuation of the adhrigu-praisa. 105 vs 19–21: bhūmer gandha-guņān bhunkse, pibasy āpomayān rasān / jyotisām
paśyase rūpam, sprśyasy anila-jān guṇān // śļņosy ākāśa-jān sabdān, manasā manyase matim sarvany etāni bhūtāni prānā iti ca manyase // prānâdāne nivrtto 'si, hiņsāyām vartate bhavan / nâsti cestă vină himsām, kim vā tvam manyase, dvija? - Deussen's translation of 20 c, d: 'All these beings are animated, as you know', fails to appreciate that the adhvaryu attributes only to the yati the notion of the animation of elements (not: beings'); he himself naturally does not share it! In 21a Deussen reads pranâdāne'nivrtto 'si ('and you never stop taking life from them'); but neither the Bombay, nor the Calcutta edition writes the avagraha which is otherwise always placed, and the point here is after all that the adhvaryu presents the yati with the contradiction between his vow of ahimsa and his actual, unavoidable himsā.
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to the arguments of the adhvaryu, or are simply not intelligible.106 The adhvaryu in his turn replies definitively and very politely that one must only live with good people;107 cognisant of the view of the yati, he is confirmed in his own view even more and commits no sin when he follows the Vedic rule. The narrator of the story then remarks that the yati has remained silent on account of the argumentation (upapattyā; or ‘in an appropriate manner'?) but the adhvaryu went on with his sacrifice.
Such a victory of the champion of the bloody sacrifices is, however, an exception; the rule is the triumph of ahimsā as, for example, in the episode Mbh. XII 246 (Deussen 1922: 473f.) straightforwardly entitled (37] ‘Reprimand of the sacrifice' (yajña-nindā). A pious forest ascetic, who lives strictly according to ahimsā and makes an offering of only roots and fruits, is led into temptation by a god in that, at his request, another ascetic turns himself into a gazelle and proffers himself for sacrifice. The ascetic refuses but on being allowed to see with divine eyes the apsaras and the heavenly palaces to be expected as a reward, softens and wishes to attain heaven through the sacrifice of the gazelle. The gazelle saves him from doing this by turning itself into the god Dharma and explains that this is not the proper manner of sacrifice; but the mere wish to kill has sufficed to deprive the ascetic of his great tapas. In other words: killing is not appropriate to sacrifice (27: tasmād dhiņsā na yajñiyā), ahimsā is total piety; himsā in sacrifice is not admissible (ahimsā sakalo dharmo, himsā yajñe 'samāhitā).
So just as the hero of this story makes his offering with roots and fruits, there are likewise frequent attempts to resolve the conflict between ahimsā and Vedic sacrifice through the promotion of exclusive vegetabilistic - or spiritual! - offerings. One must then either reinterpret or explain as misunderstood or forged the literal meaning of the Vedic precepts - if one does not dare in fact to discard it openly. 108
106 Even Deussen's alteration of sad-bhāva in swa-bhāva in 23 b does not help,
and naturally Nīlakantha's daring explanation of sva-bhāva as su-abhāva
(sutarām a-bhāvah, kāla-traye 'py a-sattvam) even less so. 107 Vs 25: sadbhir evêha samvāsaḥ kāryaḥ. Deussen translates: 'Only with the
(empirical) real do we have to live together in this world. To me, the polite commonplace is more probable than the philosophical profundity which
does not fit at all in the context. 108 Dayānand Sarasvatī, the founder of the Arya Samāj and the champion of
the 'Return to the Veda', writes in Samullāsa 12 of his chief work Satyarthaprakāś concisely and conclusively: aur jo māms kā khānā likhā hai,
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The second possibility is chosen by the pious tradesman Tulādhāra in his famous instruction of the ascetic Jājali.109 After he has delivered a long sermon on ahimsā, in which he condemns agriculture and cattle-breeding, culminating in the statement: 'There is no higher piety than non-violation of living beings,'110 Jājali raises in Mbh. XII 265, 1-3 the objection that all men, including Tulādhāra, live from agriculture and cattle-breeding and, as without both no offering can be given, he is a nihilist (nāstika). Tulādhāra protests his high esteem for sacrifice - but of the 'brahmanic' kind, because the (present-day) brahmins have given up their' sacrifice and taken on the ksatriya sacrifice, which was developed by avaricious nihilists in ignorance of the true Veda teaching. 111 [38]
The proper sacrifice is made 'with reverence as the sacrifical meal and Veda study as the herbal juices'. 112 According to vs 18, it is an 'offering of truth and self-restraint' (satya and dama). The offering potion poured into the fire ascends to the sun and comes back from there as rain, from which sustenance and progeny result;113 in this manner the ancestors attained all their wishes, whereby farming was unnecessary, because 'unploughed, the earth let her fruits ripen; through mere prayers, the plants flourished'. 114 In vs 24 it is said of the pious that they 'walk along the path of the righteous and present the ahimsā of all living beings as an offeringʻ.115
Immediately after the story of Tulādhāra and Jājali follows in Mbh. XII 257 (cr. ed.; Deussen 1922: 436f.) the Vicakhnugītā, the protest of the king Vicakhnu against a cowslaughter on the place of the sacrifice. Here we read the daring words:
The pious Manu has instructed ahimsā in all the rituals ... the ahimsā is to be regarded as the highest of all obligations.
vah ved-bhāg rāksas kā banāyā hai, and what is written there about meat
eating, that part of the Veda is made by the devil'. 109 Mbh. XII 254ff., Deussen 1922: 423ff.; Winternitz I 1962: 365ff. 110 Mbh. XII 254, 29: na bhūtānām ahimsāyā jyāyān dharmo ‘sti kaścana. 111 Vs 5f.: sva-yajñam brāhmaṇā hitvā kşātram yajñam ihâsthitā) // lubdhair vitta
parair, brahman, năstikaiḥ sampravartitam / veda-vādān a-vijñāya satyâbhāsam
ivânytam. 112 Vs 8: namaskāreņa havişā svâdhyāyair ausadhais tathā. 113 On these teachings cf. Lüders 1951 ch. IX, on p. 314 our vs 11 is quoted
which is almost identical with Manu 3,76. 114 Vs 12: a-krsta-pacyā prthivī, āsīrbhir vīrudho 'bhavan. 115 satām vartmânuvartante yajante câvihimsayā. The critical edition reads ...
yatha-balam a-himsayā, but the well attested yajante câvio (v.1. °te to avio, oti tv avio) appears to me to be preferred.
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Whoever has strengthened his vows through fasting has deviated from the precepts given in the Veda (and says:) the use is an abuse. 116
The next stanza explicitly turns against only shunning meat not originating from the sacrifice, 117 and vs 9 asserts: '(The enjoyment of) spirits, fish, honey, meat, rum and sesame rice - that has been introduced by unworthy people and not allowed in the Veda.'118 The key to the understanding of this radicalism is furnished in vs 10: [39] brahmins see in all offerings only the one Vişnu, to whom only bloodless offerings, above all, milk libations and flowers, are made:119 We have here already the especially close connection between vegetarianism and Vişnuism, which is so notorious and characteristic for modern India.
Vişnuist is also, as is narrated in Mbh. XII 324 (Deussen 1922: 764ff.), the story of King Vasu: the very first stanza praises him as a particularly ardent Vaisnava (bhāgavato 'tyartham),120 whereupon Nīlakantha remarks that the chapter beginning thus illustrates the rejection of the bloody sacrifice by the Vaişnavas. 121 The story is, so to speak, the classical example of the vegetarian reinterpretation of a Vedic word. Gods and rșis (seers) dispute among themselves whether in the precept ajena yaşțavyam the word aja signifies a he-goat, according to the gods, or rather corn, as the rşis maintain. 122 As they cannot agree, they call upon King Vasu, who is acknowledged to be pious and who just came flying near in the
116 Vs 5ff.: sarva-karmasv a-himsām hi dharmâtma Manur abravit ... a-himsaiva
hi sarvebhyo dharmebhyo jyāyasī matā // upoşya sambito bhūtvā hitvā veda-kytāḥ
śrutīḥ / ācāra ity an-ācāraḥ. 117 yadi yajñāms ca vrkşāms ca yūpāmś côddiśya mānavāḥ / vịthā-māmsam na
khädanti, nâisa dharmah praśasyate. The reading vrtha-māmsāni set in the text of the critical edition is at variance with the context. Cf. Mbh. XII 186, 13: yajuşā samskrtam māmsam nivetto māmsa-bhakşaņāt / na bhakşayet (Deussen
1922: 176: ... should not eat flesh consecrated in sacrifice either'). 118 måmsam madhu surā matsyā āsavam krsa-raudanam / dhūrtaih pravartitam hy
etan, na tad vedesu kalpitam. 119 Vişnum evâbhijānanti sarva-yajñesu brāhmaṇāh / pāyasaih su-manobhis ca
tasyâpi yajanam smrtam. 120 The critical edition reads yadā bhakto bhagavata āsīd. 121 yada bhagavato 'tyartham ity-ādir adhyāyo vaisnavānām himsra-yajña
varjanârthaḥ. 122 The rşis take as a precedent in connection with their firm rejection of
every animal-killing that one lives in Kịtayuga, the golden age, in which
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air, to act as an arbitrator. He inquires cautiously which view is supported by either party and then takes the side of the gods. Thereupon the rṣis curse him to be swallowed up by the earth, but he is freed later from the curse through incessant devotion to VisnuNārāyaṇa. The story is narrated once again in Mbh. XIV 91 but differently: here the rṣis protest against an animal sacrifice by Indra, which they characterise as sinful because himsa is not dharma.123 They call on Indra to offer three-year-old seeds. He declines and they dispute whether 'movable or immovable' (jangama or sthavara, whether animals [40] or plants) are to be sacrificed.
Finally with the concurrence of Indra, Vasu is questioned. He gives the unreflected answer that one should offer whatever is available, and disappears into the underworld.124
This version, which is not Viṣṇuist and with Indra in the main role gives the impression of being ancient, has forgotten the main point: namely that it is a question of a dispute about the meaning of the word aja. Instead of that, it has retained that which substantiates first of all the etymological interpretation of a-ja as 'non-germinating (seeds)' and what is missing in the Vişnuist setting: the assertion that it is question of three-year-old seeds which are, therefore, no longer capable of germinating and hence are lifeless. 125 That this is the meaning of the triennial period is confirmed by the Jains, who have seized upon this legend as highly suitable for their ends, have inserted it into their universal history and have expanded it into the 'story of the genesis of the animal sacrifice'.126 The alterations which
no animal is allowed to be slaughtered. Visnu himself proclaims this in Mbh. XII 327,73 (Deussen 1922: 791): The present age, known as the Kṛta, has dawned as the best age; in this age sacrificial animals are not allowed to be killed; and so it is' (idam kṛtayugam nama kālaḥ śreṣṭaḥ pravartitaḥ / ahimsya yajña-paśavo yuge 'smin, na tad anyathā). Already in the next age, the Tretayuga, in which one quarter of the fourfold consummate dharma has disappeared, animals are consecrated and killed in sacrifice (not to mention then, what is not expressed, in our Kaliyuga, which has only one quarter of the dharma!).
123 Vs 14: nayam dharma-kṛto yajño, na himsa dharma ucyate.
124 Vs 22f.: yathôpanitair yaṣṭavyam iti provāca pārthivaḥ // evam uktva sa nṛpatiḥ pravivesa rasatalam.
125 Agastya also offers triennial seeds in Mbh. XIV 92 when Indra withholds rain from him in connection with a twelve-year sacrifice. The ascetics gathered with him highly extol ahimsa and pray to him to propagate such ahimsa in sacrifice (vs 34: etam ahimsam yajñeṣu bruyas tvam satatam, prabho). Why the seeds offered are triennial is not expressed here either.

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it sustained in the process need not be investigated here. The disputation on the meaning of the the word aja (respectively of the śruti: ajair yaṣṭavyam) has, however, remained a principal item in all Jain versions, and in Gunabhadra (67, 330) Narada expressly explains: vigatânkura-śaktikam/ yava-bījam trivarṣa-stham ajam, 'aja is a three-year-old barley-corn deprived of its vitality'.12
The fact that the King Vasu, who had been called as an arbitrator, decided in favour of animal sacrifice is confirmed even by the Jains (according to them he passes a wrong verdict against better knowledge and against his vow of truth). This clear role certified by themselves has, however, not prevented the ardent Vaisnavas from maintaining in Mbh. XII 338 – immediately prior to the story of the verdict - that Vasu had, at a horse-sacrifice (!), insisted that no animal be slaughtered [41] and that only wild plants were offered - a piety which Visnu rewarded by revealing himself incarnate only to the king.
-
The material taken from the Mahabharata could be well-nigh arbitrarily multiplied by resorting to related and later literature, above all the Purāņas; however, what concerns us here is not so much the completeness of the material (especially since the chronological order would be even more questionable), but rather is the aim of completion and rounding off of the picture obtained from Manu sufficiently reached through the most representative and, in general, almost contemporary source. With this aim, we only briefly turn towards the law-literature after Manu and ascertain that no other work of the second stage, viz. of the metrical Dharmaśāstras has dealt with our theme with such copiousness or offers similar possibilities for contrasting the successively following developmental stages of the textual layers.
The work closest to Manu in time and significance, the Yājñavalkyasmṛti, does indeed present the rules governing permitted and forbidden foods in a comparatively speaking detailed manner - the list of the edible and unedible animals alone spans five slokas
127
126 See the table of contents of the version in Gunabhadra's Uttarapurāņa through von Glasenapp 1926: 343ff. In Jinasena's Harivamsapurana, the story stands 17, 38-164. It is also found in the universal history of the Śvetämbaras, for example Hemacandra, Triṣaṣṭiśalākāpuruṣacaritra VII, 2,
362-514.

127 In Jinasena, Harivamsapurāṇa 17, 69 they are rice grains (tri-varṣā vrīhayo bījā). - See also Handiqui 1949: 425 < Yaśastilaka, Kāvyamālā II 354, 18ff.
(WB).
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but there are only three in it compared to thirty stanzas in Manu on the consumption of and abstinence from meat' (5, 27-56).128 Even if one takes into account the fact that there is three times more material on average (in Manu), that is still extraordinarily little. In the reconstruction of the Bịhaspatismộti (GOS LXXXV) undertaken by K.V. Rangaswami Aiyangar, we likewise find only five pertinent stanzas. 129 There is of course no certainty that we therewith have everything that was in the lost text, but considering the total extent of the quotations gathered together by Aiyangar, five stanzas are in any case very few indeed.
Nārada can have nothing because, as is well-known, he treats law only in the narrow sense. By contrast, we come across two-thirds of the Manu-stanzas in Vișnu - undoubtedly cited directly from our Manu text. Of its thirty stanzas (5, 27–56) [42] only ten are missing (27-33, 35, 37, 56). It is nevertheless worth noting that the passage 45–55, which is based on uncompromising vegetarianism, is cited in full, whereas it is precisely those which refer to natural law and order of creation (thereby claiming the right of unrestricted meat-eating [28–30]), which belong to the unquoted section vss 27–44. Similarly vs 35, which makes the avoidance of meat-eating commanded by ritual punishable, and vs 56, which, like 28–30, characterizes meateating as sinless normal human conduct. In these omissions, the advanced standpoint of the Vişnusmrti is distinctly documented, whether, with J.J. Meyer, one regards the whole as a later work or count our passage to the recognized late additions.
The unmistakable decrease of the discussion on meat and sacrifice in the earlier Smộtis may be taken as one indication of what is in any case clear: that the problem of the incompatibility of ahimsā and sacrifice is increasingly declining in practical significance. If it is one of the most well-known features of the development of the old Aryan religion to Hinduism that the sacrifice, the yajña, has been replaced
128 1, 179 corresponds to Manu 5, 27 and 32; 180 corresponds to 5, 38; 181
corresponds to 5, 53f. In the text Yājñ. is quite independent. 129 Ācārakanda 81-85 (p. 321f.) 81 d = Manu 5, 50 b; e, f similar to Manu 5,
38 a, b. 82 corresponds to Manu 5, 36. 81 c-f is wrongly arranged: the stanza belongs, as the quotation in Kętyakalpataru (III p. 316) proves, between 84 and 85 c-f (84: meat-eating allowed in sickness, śrāddha invitation, offering and brahmin feeding; 81 c-f: evil karmic consequences of meat-eating otherwise (ato 'nyathā); 85 c-f: whoever even in sickness and despite being urged to eat meat abstains, obtains the reward of a hundred horse sacrifices. 81 a,b and 85 a,b are likewise wrongly arranged; they do not belong here.
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by the modern bloodless form of worship, the pūjā,130 it was the growing significance of ahimsā, above all, which increasingly diminished the (need for) sacrifice. With the inertia of the old beside the new, which is so characteristic of India, sacrifice has survived as a relic within narrow circles. It was never contested in theoretical weight and importance, but in practice is becoming a learned tour de force, by virtue of which one occasionally bypasses the actual offences of killing animals and meat consumption by means of substitutes, which on account of the old texts must make the whole sacrificial ritual simply invalid, respectively, ineffective. The report [43] of a German indologist (Sontheimer? [WB]) who, two years ago, attended a large sacrificial event in Poona lasting several days was not without a comic touch.
The third stratum of the law literature constitutes, as noted above (p. [21]), the commentaries to the old texts, which are to be considered partly as self-supporting independent law-works only using the shape of commentaries, and the nibandhas, compendia which represent essentially more or less comprehensive and systematic compilations of statements of the ancient authors or texts and so can almost take on the character of collections of quotations. Thus the oldest preserved and, at the same time, most extensive and complete nibandha, the repeatedly mentioned Kệtyakalpataru of Lakşmīdhara written at the beginning of the twelfth century, quotes,
130 It is a particularly striking example of the typically Indian juxtaposition
of contrasts which, as we see it, are incompatible, viz. that even in modern Hinduism there are bloody, even very bloody sacrifices. The goat- and buffalo-sacrifices at the Kalighat in Calcutta are particularly well-known; there is evidence of past human sacrifices (purusa-medha) in Bhavabhūti's Mālatīmādhava (act 5 (WB]) which is certainly not a figment of a poet's imagination. On former (and perhaps even today's) human sacrifices in Nepal, and the orgy of blood at the Durgā-festival there see FilchnerMarathe 1953: 132–37 and also the depiction of the Kali sacrifice in Darjeeling in Nebesky-Wojkowitz 1955: 180–84. It needs hardly be emphasized that these bloody sacrifices by no means continue the Vedic, Aryan sacrifice. No one will consider the goddess Kālī-Durgā, to whom they are made, to be an Aryan deity no more than one would derive tantrism from the Aryan religion. - See Mallebrein & von Stietencron 2008: 249 under: sacrifice. There is a trend in Orissa towards raising tribal deities up to the status of a superior, vegetarian god corresponding to recent attempts to abolish animal sacrifices, in which it marks the first step (ibid., p. 106 and Mallebrein 2007). On human sacrifices, see further the references in Tawney-Penzer, X 1928: 181 and Mallebrein and von Stietencron, 2008: 249. (WB).
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in its two sections 'Rules pertaining to the eating and avoiding of meat 131 and 'Rules pertaining to the permitted and forbidden killing of animals',132 three prose passages and not less than 100 stanzas from as many as 13 authors or works; of the stanzas, 31 come from Manu,133 27 from the Mahābhārata, 17 from Yama, 8 from Hārīta and 3 from Yājñavalkya.
Much more modest and much more strongly focused on Manu is a selection of the Smộticandrikā of Devanna Bhatta a little later, which is likewise considered to belong to the most important nibandhas. 134 His presentation of the meat problem be briefly sketched as an example of the diverse ways in which commentators and the nibandha authors try to harmonize contradictions in the traditional rules which are only intelligible to us through a historical perspective.
Devana Bhatta begins, as we have just noted (previous note), with the most radical form of the meat-prohibition, Manu 5, 48f. He then interprets the end of vs 49 ('... people should renounce every kind of meat') in the way that 'every kind' becomes to mean: 'every kind procured with desire for it (or enjoyment of it)' (sarvasmād (44) rāga-prāpta-māņsa-bhakṣaṇān nivarteta), but the renunciation does not result out of fear of committing transgression through meat-eating, because Manu 5, 56 indeed says expressly: "There is no sin in meat-eating.' The conclusion of this stanza
131 mamsa-bhaksana-vartana-vidhi, GOS CXI, p. 311ff. 132 pasu-himsā-vidhi-pratişedhau, loc. cit., 326ff. 133 Cited are 5,22f. and the whole of section 5, 26-56, with the exception of
48f. On vs 48 cf. above p. [5]; of it, vs 49 is a repeated emphasis: 'Bearing in mind the origin of meat and the slaughtering and binding of the animals, people should renounce the consumption of every kind of meat' (samutpattim ca māmsasya vadha-bandhau ca dehinām / prasamīksya nivarteta sarva-māmsasya bhakşanāt). It is difficult to understand why only these two stanzas have been left out. If the reason was that its extremely clear and unequivocal formulation of the requirement of unconditional and unrestricted vegetarianism too clearly contradicted the stanzas which allow or forbid conditional meat-eating, then this contradiction has not in any case disturbed the author of the about to be mentioned Smrticandrikā, who indeed cites these two stanzas first. - On vadha and bandha (here with Werba (p.c.) in a votepov npótepov compound whose remarkable formation is in no dictionary or grammar, though Renou 1930 § 86f. briefly deals with irregular dvandvas), see, e.g. Williams 1963: 67
and Bruhn 2007: 46f. and 64 (WB). 134 On this see Winternitz 1920:502, where Devannabhatta's work is thought
to have been written about 1200 CE (WB).
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emphasizes the general merit of meat-renunciation, but likewise whoever aspires to the reward of such renunciation may partake of meat on four occasions enumerated in Manu 5, 27: sacrifice, feeding brahmins, invitation to śrāddha, or risk to one's life.
If the reward for meat-renunciation is not aspired to, then restriction to these four occasions does not hold and likewise Manu 5, 36, according to which one should never (na kadācana) eat meat which is ‘not consecrated', i.e. not used ritually, applies only to the one aspiring to the reward of renunciation. But just as the general permission to have sexual intercourse pronounced by Manu 5,56 is of course qualified through special prohibitions on intimacy with the wife of another and with prostitutes, so also is the general permission to eat meat restricted through specific prohibitions on the eating of certain species of animals. Inserted here is now the list of the animals placed in Manu before the section 5, 26–56, cited fully and comprehensively commented upon. After that, it is stated that even with the animals declared to be edible permission has a bearing only on eating but not on killing: expressis verbis is taught what we have learnt from the old Buddhists and Jains: Mere eating is no sin, but this does not apply when one has killed an animal with the aim of eating it, because one can indeed procure meat without (oneself) killing an animal.'135 Killing certainly is a sin according to Mann 5, 45 and Yājñ. 1, 180.
There remains then only the fatal stipulation of Mann 5, 51, according to which, just as the sanctioner, the butcher, the killer, the buyer, the seller, the cook and the servant, the eater, too, is considered to be a killer (ghātaka). Here the author knows only to avail himself of the not particularly convincing explanation that the designation ‘eater' had a bearing only on the one who somehow incited the killer (hantīņām kathamcid preraka-bhūtasya), but not on one completely uninvolved (udāsīna), who does not bring about the killing in any manner. We could also formulate, as we have already done above: the eater must neither directly nor indirectly be responsible for the killing.
Regarding variation in particular details, above all, in the arrangement of the subject matter and [45] the logical linking together, most of the authors proceed, on the whole, alike. Besides,
135 bhakṣaṇīyesu bhakşaņa-mātrena pratyavāyo, nâstîti gamyate, na tu bhakşaņāya
prāņi-vadhe krte 'pīti, prāņi-vadham a-kstvā māmsârjana-sambhavät, 'na himsyāt sarva-bhūtāni' iti himsā-pratişedhāc ca.
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it would indeed be sufficient for them and for the reader, to appeal to Manu rule 2, 14, according to which conflicting Vedic precepts are alternatively both valid;136 or one assumes that the last opinion expressed is valid as siddhanta, the preceding contradictory one, a pūrva-pakşa. However, it does occur that one unequivocal rule is quite inconsistent with the view of the time: this is true, for example, of the command to slaughter a large cow or a large goat for the guest. Here Vijñānêśvara, in his famous commentary to Yājñavalkya, the Mitâkṣarā, makes good use of the rather vague expression of his basic text: he explains the words mahôkşam vā mahâjam vā śrotriyôpakalpayet (above p. [18] note 49) by saying that with upakalpayet ('he should prepare' or 'he should give to a person a person's share') is meant here: one should show an ox or a goat to a guest as meant for him symbolically but not give it to him, or slaughter it in reality, because one could not afford an ox for every single śrotriya and, moreover, the rule holds good that one should not do anything which does not lead to heaven and is a vexation to men, even when it is right. 137
The author of the Krtyakalpataru solves the difficulty differently. He concedes that the text of Yājñavalkya demands the killing of a cow but establishes that this is no longer appropriate in the Kaliyuga and applies only to another age. 138 He thus arranges the old rule under the not insubstantial number of cases of the Kali-varjyas,139 the commands and prohibitions which were valid in the olden times but are no longer appropriate in our iron age: a doctrine of the Smộtis which with its noteworthy acknowledgement of a change which occurred in customs and opinions can be regarded as a modest attempt to put it into historical perspective.
It has been extraordinarily difficult to obtain a picture of the actual spread of vegetarianism up to the present day. No statistics document it; [46] literary testimonies which of course could be collected in large numbers, are not necessarily a reliable reflection
136 śruti-dvaidham tu yatra syāt, tatra dharmāv ubhau smrtau ubhāv api hi tau
dharmau samyag uktau manīşibhiḥ. 137 mahāntam uksānam dhaureyam mahâjam vā śrotriyāyôkta-laksaņāyôpakalpayet,
'bhavad-artham ayam asmābhiḥ parikalpita' iti tat-prīty-artham, na tu dānâya vyāpādanâya vā, yathā 'sarvam etad bhavadīyam' iti prati-śrotriyam ukşâsambhavāt, 'a-svargyam loka-vidviştam dharmyam apy ācaren na tu' iti
nişedhāc ca. 138 III 190: atra yady api gļhâgata-śrotriya-typty-artham go-vadhaḥ kartavya iti
pratīyate, tathâpi kaliyuge nayam dharmaḥ, kimtu yugântare. 139 Cf. perhaps Kane 1977 (VI) Index see under Kali Age.
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of actual practice, particularly because they predominantly originate from brahmins: but it is not doubtful that vegetarianism is first of all and preeminently a brahmanic custom.140 The relativist ethics of Hinduism allots each caste its proper codex of obligations, so that what is prohibited for one can be permitted to another; thereby the ritual and customary demands are always the highest for the brahmins. Leaving aside the pariahs, there are many lower castes which are, therefore, not vegetarian; but even the warring nobility is by and large absolved from ahiņsā - not only because, as we saw above (p. [32]), it was not inclined to renounce hunting, but also because its typical caste duty is bloody battle.
As a chiefly brahmanic custom, vegetarianism had a strong tendency to ever increasing expansion because social distinction clings to all brahmanic customs and, therefore, adoption of brahmanic regulations or at least attempts to approximate them promises an improvement of the social classification of a caste; it is well-known how this tendency has created a hindrance to social reform in issues such as child-marriage (Bruhn 2008: 11; 102) or the prohibition on widows remarrying (Bruhn 2008: 101f. [WB]).
A modern Indian expert, P.V. Kane, 141 comments on the modern state of affairs as follows: 'Gradually large sections of the population of India gave up flesh-eating and even those who did not regard it as forbidden to them rarely partook of it, or did so in an apologetic way. The spread of Vaisnavism tended to wean people away from flesh as required by the Bhāgavatapurāņa (VII 15,7–8)142 [47] which
140 Yet, the assertion of Patil (1946: 214): Megasthenes and Strabo state that
the caste of philosophers abstained from animal food' is quite wrong because the renunciation of meat-eating and sexual intercourse recorded by the brahmins (Breloer-Böhmer 1939: 28; McCrindle 1926: 99) ensued only during their state as a religious student, of brahmacarya; a few lines further on it is added then that when the brahmins commence worldly life after 37 years, they eat meat with the exception of the meat of animals used for work (which may have excluded cattle). Megasthenes thus explicitly testifies the converse of what Patil ascribes to him (see also Haussleiter 1935: 46; ibid., p. 44 and 53 in which all the ancient informa
tion on Indian vegetarianism is collected). 141 Kane II/2: 780. Kane's very detailed description of the meat-eating
problem is an exceedingly commendable collection of matter, but he does not succeed in sorting out historically the conflicting statements in the
texts. 142 na dadyad āmişam śrāddhe na câdyād dharma-tattva-vit / muny-annaiḥ syāt parā
prītis tathā na pasu-himsayā // etādrśaḥ paro dharmo nrņām sad-dharmam icchatām.
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is to the Vaisnavas what the Bible is to the Christians. In medieval and modern times all brāhmaṇas avoid flesh (except some brāhmaṇas in northern and eastern India who hold that fish may be eaten); so also do many vaisyas, particularly those who are Vaisnavas, and even among sūdras there are many who do not touch flesh and regard abstention from flesh as meritorious. From ancient times the kșatriyas have been meat-eaters. '143
What we have learnt about the significance of sacrifice for the evolution of ahimsā and vegetarianism enables us now to comprehend still more precisely the role of the reform religions of Buddhism and Jainism within this central Indian movement. The essential distinction between them and their Brahmanic adversaries is that, with them, thanks to their heterodoxy, the new ideal did not clash with the heavy impediment of the tradition as cult of sacrifice and further animal-killing customs. One of their most essential motivations was indeed resistance against and attack on the whole sacrifice system which had degenerated into an over-elaborate ritual science and the arrogance of its brahmanic supporters, whereby - as perhaps the above-discussed Vasu story (p. [39]) shows - ahimsā could indeed afterwards become the chief point of view, although to begin with this was not by any means apparent.
This is illustrated by two precious creations of old ascetic poetry which are preserved for us in one of the oldest texts of the Jain canon, the Uttarajjhāyā.144 Both describe the appearance of a Jain monk at a place of sacrifice and his argument with the brahmanic sacrificers. In both, the Jain monk does not come in order to protest against the bloody sacrifice; on his normal begging-tour he simply calls and requests a share of the sacrificial repast, which in both cases is denied to him as a non-brahmin. In the ensuing verbal skirmish, the Jain instructs the sacrificers in phrases, many of which can be found just so in Buddhism, on the perversity of their doings, on the true brahminhood and the true and proper sacrifice: [48] One becomes and is a brahmin not through birth but through right conduct; the true brahmin is the Jain monk, the proper sacrifice is his ascetic way
143 Bühler states in his Report of 1877: 23 that the Kashmir brahmins
collectively eat not only fish but also lamb and goat's meat. 144 Chap. 12: Hariesijjam, and 25: Jannaijjam, translation by Jacobi in SBE
XLV. In our context it is irrelevant that Chap. 12 has a parallel in a Jātaka (treated by Charpentier 1908: 171ff. and in the commentary to his textual edition); here only the Jinistic frame of the narration matters. - For another parallel see Hemacandra, Parisiştaparvan 5, 9f. (WB).
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of life. To this naturally belongs also the ahimsā, but the polemic against brahmanic sacrifice is not at all concentrated on ahimsā. It appears in a sequence with all the other requirements of ascetic life and most of all in its characteristic extension or generalization of non-violence to all the elements (cf. above p. [14f.)) that is, without any special reference to the sacrificial victim.
Therefore, in Uttar. 12,38f. it is said:
Why do you brahmins kindle fire145 and seek external cleansing with water? The external purity which you seek is not looked upon by the wise as a good sacrifice! Kuća-gras, sacrificial pole, straw, wood, fire, touching water morning and evening (and thereby) injuring the animated elements 116 -- you fools commit ever more transgressions. 147
In the next stanza, to the question addressed to him, how then one should sacrifice properly, the Jain then answers in vs 41: Not violating (a-samārabhantā!) the six classes of souls,148 abstaining from falsehood, (not taking) that what is not given, property, women, pride, deceit - renouncing these, men under self-restraint are wandering.'149
Except for the passages reproduced here, there is nowhere in the entire chapter any reference to ahimsā. In the 45 stanzas of chapter 25, it appears likewise only twice. In the section comprising 14 stanzas on everything that constitutes the true brahmin, it says in vs 23: 'Whoever is fully cognizant of all moving as well as the immobile beings; whoever does no injury to them in the three-fold
145 An equally good or better translation could be: 'violating the fire'. In any
case, the handling of fire here is signified as himsā, cf. above p. [15). 146 Jacobi translates: living beings' which may likewise be possible, but it
appears clear to me that the Jain is sermonizing on non-violence to all
the elements. 147 kim mahanā joisam, ärabhantā udaena sohim bahiyā vimaggaha? / jam maggaha
bāhiriyam visohim, na tam suiţtham kusalā vayanti || kusam ca jūvam tanakattham aggim sāyam ca pāyam udagam phusantā / pāņāi bhūyāi vihedayantā
bhujjo vi mandā pagareha pāvam. 148 These are, as the fourth chapter of the Dasaveyāliya (Chajjīvaniyā) named
after them ennumerates, those embodied in the four elements earth,
water, fire and air just as the souls of plants and of moving beings. 149 Utt 12, 41: chajjīva-kāe a-samārabhantā mosam a-dattam ca a-sevamāņā /
pariggaham itthio māņa-māyam eyam parinnāya caranti dantā.

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manner (in thought, word and deed), him we call a brahmin,'150 and in vs 30: "The tying of animals (to the sacrificial pole), all the Vedas and (49) performing sacrifices do not protect the wicked from the karma of sinful deeds,151 for the karmas are powerful.'152 Even in this unique direct mention of animal sacrifice this stands only as one piece of a more comprehensive whole.
It can only be concluded from this that for the Jains, opposition to brahmanic sacrifice was, at least to begin with, only a part of the overall battle against brahmanic religion and brahmanic arrogance, in the course of which the main accent was by no means on ahimsā, and animal sacrifice as such was scarcely stressed. When then, later, a sharp attack especially on animal-sacrifice ensues, it occurs through the adoption of the brahmanic story of King Vasu, so that here too, the Jains only follow the example given by the brahmins themselves. This can indeed only signify that Jainism - and the same holds true a fortiori of Buddhism - was not the actual source of ahimsā, which, as often assumed, had spread from the reform religions to the brahmanic religion. Rather it is the case that Buddhism and Jainism are only a part of a common Indian spiritual movement (Geistesbewegung), to which they had a particularly favourable predisposition and which, therefore, caught on with them and was pursued with extraordinary zeal.
This should be taken into consideration in the interpretation and evaluation of the justifiably most famous and frequently cited testimonies for ancient Indian vegetarianism in the inscriptions of the Emperor Asoka, the particular value of which lies in the fact that we finally have here, once and for all, quite a strong historical foothold. While we can only assign a fundamentally important work such as Manu's rather vaguely to the period between the second century BCE and the second century CE (and here we need to orient ourselves to the upper rather than the lower limit), Asoka can be clearly dated to the middle of the third century BCE - in some instances, to the very year. The inscriptions which the emperor had put on rocks and columns according to the Achaemenid prototype are, as is well-known, chiefly literally moral sermons to his people. Already in the first of the fourteen great Rock Edicts, we read the
150 tasa-pāne viyānetta samgahena ya thāvare / jo na himsai ti-vihena, tam vayam
būma māhanam. 151 I have corrected -kammunā to -kammuno. 152 pasu-bandhā savva-veya ya jattham ca pāva-kammuno / na tam tāyanti dussīlam,
kammāni balavanti hi.
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fundamental sentence: 'There should not be any killing of a living being here for sacrifice.'153 A little later are seen the often quoted sentences:
Formerly many hundreds of thousands of living beings were being killed to make curry in the kitchen of the godbeloved king Piyadassi; (50) now, after the decree of this religious edict not more than three living beings were killed, two peacocks and one gazelle, but later even these three living beings will not be killed any more.154
More than once non-violence to living beings 155 appears in a list of virtues recommended to the people and, in the eighth Rock Edict, the emperor contrasts his pilgrimage to the abode of Buddha's enlightenment to the hunting expeditions of earlier rulers. The inscription in the Greek language, found in Afghanistan in 1958, even asserts that hunting and fishing were discontinued in the realm of Asoka and, without further ado, makes him a vegetarian156 using the phrase àntéxetai Tôv čuyúxov common in the Greek discussion about vegetarianism. Here at least the assertion about hunting and fishing should be taken no more literally than the 'many hundreds of thousands of animals slaughtered daily in the imperial kitchens. The passage of the fourth Rock Edict, where the emperor boasts that due to his moral teaching the non-killing and non-violation of living beings (mentioned first in a list of virtues) had increased to such an extent as had not been the case for many hundreds of years. That he would support a further increase and hoped that his descendants would act similarly, is quite an impressive proof of historical development. 157
153 hida no kimci jīvam ālabhitu pajohitaviye. 154 puluvam mahānasasi devânampiyasa Piyadasine lajine anudivasam bahūni
pāna-sata-sahasāni alabhiyisu sūpathāye. se aja adā iyam dhamma-lipi likhitā timni yeva panāni alabhiyamti, duve majūlā eke mige, se pi cu mige no dhuvam;
etāni pi cu timni pānāni pachā no ālabhiyisamti. 155 Rock Edict. III jīvesu anālambhe sādhu (Kalsi: pānānam anālambhe sādhu); IX
pānesu (pānānam) samyame; XI pānānam anālambhe. 156 Journal Asiatique 1958: 3. 157 adise bahūhi vasa-satehi no hūta-puluve, tādise aja vadhite devânampiyasa
Piyadasine lajine dhammânusathiya an-ālambhe pānānam avihisā bhūtānam nātisu sampațipati samana-babhanesu sampatipati māti-pitu-susūsā. esa amne ca bahuvidhe dhamma-calane vadhite, vadhayisati ceva devânampiye Piyadasi lāja dhamma-calanam imam ...
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The fifth Pillar Edict is nearly entirely dedicated to the protection of animals. It begins with a long list of animals which the king prohibits from killing, followed by supplementary regulations regarding days on which there is not to be any slaughtering or castration, etc.; the end of the edict is a short sentence reporting the decree of twenty-five amnesties in twenty-six years of office. In the
1 list, we find a series of old acquaintances of inedible animals from the Smộti-lists. That Asoka's list historically belongs together with these lists of the law-books is shown by, among other things the regulation that also not be killed are chiefly ‘all four-footed (51) animals which are not working animals and are not e ate n'158 - also in this Edict (first issued towards the conclusion of the reign) the relishing of other animals is presumed to be normal and not prohibited or even disapproved of.
Further, Hultzsch (Inscriptions of Asoka p. 218 n.8) has detected in the Kauțilīya Arthaśāstra an exact parallel to some regulations on forbidden slaughter days, etc. The decree of these edicts thus shows Aśoka as only a normal Hindu sovereign; it has nothing to do with his Buddhism. That he - quite naturally - interprets his animal protection regulations, regardless of their traditional pre-vegetarian character, in the light of the new ahimsā thinking so strongly dominating him, is shown in a passage at the conclusion of the seventh ('separate') Pillar Edict only available in Delhi Topra:
This increase of the piety of the people, I have brought about in a two-fold manner: through religious prescription and through (friendly) exhortations. Of these (two), however, the religious prescription is unimportant; through (friendly) exhortation much more can be attained. It was a religious prescription, for example, that I decreed: 'such and such (animal) species are not to be killed'. There are, however, many more religious prescriptions, which I have ordered. However, through (friendly) exhortations, a higher level of the growth of people's piety came to be reached with the objective of noninjury to beings and non-killing of animals. 159
158 save catupade ye pațibhogam no eti na ca khādiyati. 159 munisānam cu yā iyam dhamma-vadhi vadhitā duvehi yeva ākālehi: dhamma
niyamena ca nijhatiyā ca. tata cu lahu se dhamma-niyame, nijhatiya va bhuye. dhamma-niyame cu kho esa ye me iyam kate: imani ca imāni jātāni avadhiyāni. amnāni pi cu bahukani dhamma-niyamani yāni me katāni. nijhatiya va cu bhuye munisanam dhamma-vadhi vadhitā avihimsāye bhūtānam.
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To what extent are the sayings cited above an outpouring of Aśoka's Buddhism?
In his inscriptions the emperor attests more than once that he was a pious Buddhist; in the Small Rock Edict, he even relates his conversion and his initially very modest but, later, growing religious zeal. Apart from these personal avowals, however, in all the edicts intended for the people (as distinct from those directed to the Buddhist community) anything specifically Buddhist is missing; neither is the name of the Buddha found nor does a single one of the essentially Buddhist terms and items of doctrine appear. One has tried to explain this striking contrast with the doctrine of morals and customs preached here as being a kind of simplified [52] layman's Buddhism or Buddhism in statu nascendi;160 yet it appears to me quite certain that the removal of anything specifically Buddhist is a state-political act of the characteristic Indian religious tolerance, which the emperor announces in the famous twelfth Rock Edict in classical phrases. What he preaches to the entire population should be likewise acceptable to the followers of all religions (and actually is largely the people's normal popular religion of the time, as is reflected in the pre-Buddhist gāthās of the Jātakas or of the Dhammapada). Thereby the possibility of considering the ahimsa of the edicts as specifically Buddhist - as is often the case - is ruled out.
At only one place does the emperor reveal himself as a Buddhist: scarcely any Hindu monarch of his time would have written: 'No animal should be killed as a sacrifice here.' This sentence should by no means simply be seen as a general prohibition on sacrifice. If the emperor had wished to issue such a decree - which must be doubted in view of his former religious policy - he would probably have expressed himself much more decidedly. On the one hand, Hultzsch (1925: 2, note 3) wants to understand the use of 'here', with which the edict begins, as 'in my territory' and refers for that to two places of the Rock Edict 13 and one in Rūpnāth. The last is very doubtful:
160 See Hultzsch 1925: XLIXf., LIII. Compared to this, Lamotte 1958: 255 is right; cf. the present author, 1960: 66. In an essentially certainly pertinent manner K.V. Rangaswami's excellent introduction to the Edicts of Asoka, Adyar Library 1951 (p. XIX) expounds the non-Buddhist, 'brahmanic' character of Aśoka's dharma: 'the background of life and belief in Aśoka's time furnished by Dharmaśāstras has not received adequate attention.'

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the 'here' is probably a simple mistake. 161 In RE 13 (Q) “here' stands in contrast to 'in the frontier regions', and in the next sentence (R) the 'here' is complemented by the statement 'in the king's empire'; this expression stands in contrast to the foreign kingdoms mentioned immediately before.
When, on the other hand, one sees how RE 2 begins with the words Throughout in the empire of the king' (savata vijitasi devânam-piyasa Piyadasine lājine) and how, also in RE 3, the emperor defines the domain of his measures by 'throughout my empire' (savata vijitasi mama), the plain 'here', directly in the beginning of the first (53] of the fourteen edicts and for a well-nigh unheard-of measure like a general prohibition on sacrifice sounds much too weak: one rather has the impression that the sovereign is announcing a good example which he personally sets in his immediate circle.
This exhortation of hida is confirmed by RE 5 (M), where the eastern (and northwestern) text speaks of hida ca bāhilesu ca nagalesu 'here and in the outward cities', while Girnar certainly interprets the emperor's intention correctly by substituting hida with Pāțalipute. The interpretation of hida of RE 1 (B), too, in the sense of 'here in Pataliputra at the emperor's court' (which Rangaswami Aiyangar also advocates, loc. cit., p. XXI) is thus further supported in that the entire greater second part of the edict reports only one further good example at the imperial court, namely, the reduction of the daily slaughtering in the palace kitchen. For all that, it is nevertheless noteworthy that, even in the measures dealt with in this edict, a reference to the Buddha and his Doctrine, as could be commonly expected, is missing.
So we may well say in conclusion that even Aśoka's ahimsā and vegetarianism are not of Buddhist origin, but are part of the common Indian religious evolution, although they have been favoured and strengthened through his Buddhism.
Now if the magical awe of extinguishing life was alien to the IndoAryans, and we cannot even regard the reform-religions as its source - from where does ahimsā really come? From where does it begin
161 Hultzsch (1925: 167 n. 9) says that the hadha of the text is in any case
incorrect in this form: 'Bühler and Senart corrrect hidha. Instead of it, the context seems to require yata (= Skt. yatra); but this change would be so violent that it cannot be seriously entertained. The context appears to me to require so imperatively a relative 'where that the hypothesis of a mistake by the stone-mason or scribe cannot simply be ruled out.
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the gradual but unceasing triumphal procession which makes it one of the dominant hallmarks of Indian culture?162
There remains hardly any answer but the one that belongs to those pre-Aryan, or so to speak ‘arch-Indian' elements which were first suppressed through the Aryan conquest and for a long time remained buried, but which then gradually resurface and in their increasing persistance ultimately causing the transformation of the Aryan to the 'Hindu'. Ever since we have encountered in the preAryan Indus culture undoubted precursors of typical un-Aryan traits of Hinduism - as, for example, an earlier form of Siva; the veneration of the phallus, the Hinduist linga, abhorred by the Aryans, or the sanctity of the Pipal tree, worshipped to this day, under which, according to the legend, the Buddha reached enlightenment - ever since then the assumption of the origin from a pre-Aryan source can no longer be viewed merely as the convenient assignment to an unknown quantity.
I am convinced that this assumption also turns out to be true for the belief in metempsychosis, for example, and for the [54) ritual formation of the caste system (as distinguished from the Aryan three- or four-tiered order of estates). Among these non- or preAryan, but all the more genuine, elements of Hinduism we must, in my opinion, also class the ahiņsā, the magical life-taboo; - irrespective of the fact that, as pointed out above (p. [42] note), we are compelled to ascribe the same pre-Aryan origin to the direct opposite of ahimsā, viz. the bloody Kālī sacrifices. The assumption that both manifestations have their roots in a pre-Aryan source (Urgrund) is in fact not stranger than their undeniable juxtaposition in modern Hinduism, which defies all consistency and logic.
Finally, also the particular cattle-taboo that cannot be explained through ahimsā alone is - at least partly - attributable to a pre-Aryan origin. Here, though, things are even more complicated, and the present investigation can even less claim to treat the subject conclusively than in the case of the common ahimsā. 163
162 See, e.g. Mallebrein and von Stietencron 2008: 107 (WB). 163 However, in his note on p. [69] Alsdorf withdraws from this conclusion
because of the find of cattle bones in Mohenjo-Daro, whereas Chapple 1993: 5 opines this must not mean that all inhabitants ate meat. For him a thematic continuity stretching from the Indus Valley into classical and
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Mahātmā Gandhi, as a prominent representative of modern Hinduist sentiments may be asked to speak first:164
The real essence of Hinduism consists in the protection of the cow. The protection of the cow is for me one of the most wonderful manifestations in the evolution of mankind. It leads mankind beyond the limits of its own species. The cow signifies to me the entire sub-human world. Through the cow mankind is led to acknowledge his one-ness and equality with all living existence. Why exactly the cow was chosen for veneration is absolutely clear to me. The cow has always been the best companion of man in India. She was the dispenser of all wealth. Not only does she give milk but also made possible agriculture. The cow is a poem of pity. One sees compassion in these gentle animals. She is the mother of millions of Indians. Protection of the cow signifies protection of all the dumb creatures of God. Certainly already our most ancient prophets venerated the cow in this sense. The call of the deeper layers of our being is all the more compelling as it remains wordless. The protection of the cow signifies the gift of Hinduism to the world, and Hinduism will last as long as there are Hindus who protect the cow.
With most respectful appreciation of the intensity and ethical height of the [55] religious sentiments expressed here, the western
modern Jainism seems evident (p. 9). - Eliade 1954: 351ff. had given similar at first sight attractive views of the connections between the Indus civilisation and Hinduism which were then criticised by Gonda 1965: 20. Doniger O'Flaherty 1980: 244f. criticizing the Indus Valley Civilisation theory asks: Why does it seem more likely that a new idea came into India from another culture than that it developed in the head of some Indian raised within the Vedic tradition? More specifically, what is the basis for the hypothesis that the cow (as opposed to the bull) or cattle (as opposed to horses) were venerated in the Indus Valley?' and her reply is that there are neither cows on the Indus seals nor were there horses in the Indus Valley. “For the development of the cow imagery, we must turn to later Hinduism' (p. 246). - Seyffort Ruegg 1980: 236 thinks it improbable that vegetarianism in Buddhism, at least in the practice of very many Mahāyānists, derives from a primitive pre-Aryan source, but rather in close connection with a specific religious and philosophical teaching: the tathāgatagarbha doctrine. Finally, Houben 1999: 124 note 35 thinks Alsdorf's hypothesis on the source of ahimsā and vegetarianism is not quite convincing and seems to prefer a pan-Indian spiritual
movement as expressed earlier by Alsdorf, p. [49] (WB). 164 Cited from Glasenapp 1943: 26.
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scholar is nevertheless required to state that, in his critical view, Gandhi's explanation of the unique place of the cow in Hinduism remains quite inadequate; he must first of all contradict the belief that already the most ancient prophets had venerated cow in this sense' and he can only agree with von Glasenapp when he concludes his commentary on Gandhi's observations with the sentence: There is no doubt that cow-worship in India can be traced back to primitive perceptions but it is difficult to establish its origin; in older Vedic times, in any case, it does not appear to have existed.' The rules about the slaughter of an ox for the guest and the latter's designation as go-ghna 'cow-killer' has proved to us, just as King Rantideva's mass sacrifices of cattle have (without Kālidāsa's expressing any surprise or poetically utilized disapproval) that a much more definite judgement can be passed on the conditions of the older times. Further evidence of cattle sacrifice and consumption of beef even in the late and post-Vedic period is not missing. 165
Schlerath (1960: 133) concludes that cattle sacrifice is well attested as a living custom to the Rgveda. In his description of the Brāhmaṇa period,166 Rau discusses the office at court of the go-vikartá 'cowcarver', whose 'position proves that his office was not disreputable in ancient times. Beef was regarded as a prized food during the Brāhmaṇa period'.
Often cited but always misunderstood is the passage SatBr. 3, 1, 2, 21. On it, Weber (1885: 281) says:
Revered Yājñavalkya, the celebrated prophet of the suklāni yajūmşi, roundly declared he would not want to miss the enjoyment (of the meat) of cow and ox (dhenv-anaduhayoḥ) 'if it only is fat': aśnāmy evâham amsalam ced bhavati.167
Oldenberg says (1919: 209 note):
Here I would like to mention incidentally occurring typical expressions [56] which, in a tone with a certain freedom
165 Summaries by Weber 1885: 280f. and Hultzsch 1925: 127 n. 8. Particularly
copious (also extra-Indian) material on the entire cow-problem is offered
by Crooke 1912. 166 Rau 1957: 111. 167 Weber's subsequent assertion needs no longer be refuted: 'Only Buddhism
has so precisely accomplished the inviolability of the cow as it specifically set a purpose for animal-sacrifice through its ahimsa-doctrine.'
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from prejudice, make any ritual limitation out to be superfluous. After it has been said that one should not eat beef: Yājñavalkya, however, said: as for me, I eat it if only it is in order.
Jacobi writes in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics s. v. Cow (Hindu): "The Satapatha Brāhmaṇa, when prohibiting the eating of the flesh of the cow (III 1, 2, 21), adds the interesting statement: "Yājñavalkya said: 'I, for one, eat it, provided that it is tender.' Hultzsch, loc. cit., merely states: 'According to the Satapatha Brāhmana (3, 1, 2, 21) Yājñavalkya was fond of tender beef.'"' Similarly A.B. Keith in the Camb
of India (1922) I 137:
. 1.nado
oridge
But it was still the custom to slay a great ox or goat for the entertainment of a guest, and the great sage Yājñavalkya ate meat of milch cows and oxen, provided that the flesh was amsala, a word of doubtful import, rendered either 'firm' or ‘tender' by various authorities. 168
From the wider context of the text, it is quite clear that the prohibition of eating beef is only one of the restricting observances of the dīkņā, the sacrificial consecration. Yājñavalkya, therefore, does not bypass a general food regulation, by acting as a freethinker but, on the contrary, the imposition of the restriction to the sacrificial consecration proves that, outside of it, consumption of beef was common and normal.169
168 See Mayrhofer 1992: 38 (WB). 169 Rau (1957: 64) notes of the Brāhmaṇas generally: 'The passages where
food prohibitions and instructions about mixing with impure people are given, hold true only for the priesthood or while sacrifices are being made; it is here originally a matter of ritual observances of a limited duration, as I hope to prove elsewhere.' - For the Sat.Br. passage discussed above it must be added that all the various translations of amsala (from which Keith distances himself with good reason) turn out to be simple. The meaning of the word is unknown; it appears to me extremely unlikely that it would mean 'tender', 'juicy', 'good', 'fať or something similar; it is more likely that it might signify a ritually relevant feature which, according to Yājñavalkya, makes the beef unobjectionable even during the dīksā; thereby Weber's mocking, as well as Oldenberg's 'freedom from prejudice', would become superfluous. - Thus for Alsdorf a corruption (after aham haplography) of māmsala seems excluded (the vertical line of the ā is easily omitted in the Devanāgarī script. Is it a synonym of medhya 'destined for sacrifice' (p. [60])? (WB]).

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In the ritual of the Gṛhyasūtras, cattle sacrifices play an important role. As to this Hillebrandt (1903: 73) remarks:
Apastamba 3, 9 mentions as occasions for the sacrifice of a cow 'a guest, the fathers, weddings,... Accordingly we find cattle sacrifices at the argha-festival (P. 1, 3, 26, etc.), at the second aṣṭakā (P. 3, 3, 8, etc.), at weddings and at the sacrifice of a so-called "cow on the spit".'170
We have already seen that the cattle sacrifice for the guest was still adhered to in the entire law-literature as it also was in the metrical Smrtis, [57] but in it even the use of beef at the sacrifices for the dead can still be proven.
In a number of legal texts, we find a long list of the foods to be offered to the fathers with instructions about how long each of these foods can satisfy the fathers. Manu 3, 266-273 contains this odd menu card for the fathers. It begins with seeds, roots and fruits satisfying only for one month. There follows fish meat which satisfies for two months, and then a list of eleven kinds of meat by which the duration of satisfaction increases from three to eleven months: '... boar and buffalo meat satisfy them for ten months, but that of hares and tortoises for eleven months.'171 Then vs 271 continues:
One year gavyena payasā pāyasena vā; through the flesh of an old he-goat a twelve-years' satisfaction takes place. (The vegetable) Kālaśāka, (the fish) maha-salka, rhinoceros' and red goat's meat as well as honey satisfy indefinitely, and (likewise) all foods for ascetics.172
Bühler translates the words gavyena payasā pāyasena vā as 'with cowmilk and milk-rice'. However, Medhātithi's commentary, which states
170 For more on this so-called śula-gava see Hillebrandt 1897: 83 (and Gonda 1980: 435ff. [with further literature in note 64], where the 'spit-ox sacrifice' is explained as 'a special animal sacrifice in honour of Rudra' (WB).
171 daśa māsāms tu trpyanti varaha-mahiṣâmiṣaiḥ śasa-kurmayor mamsena māsān
ekādaśâiva tu.
172 samvatsaram tu gavyena payasā pāyasena vā
vārdhrīņasasya māmsena
tṛptir dvādaśa-vārṣikī || kālaśākam mahāśalkaḥ khaḍga-lohâmiṣam madhu / anantyäyâiva, kalpante muny-annāni ca sarvaśaḥ.

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first that gavyena should be connected with payasā, not with the māmsena of the preceding line, afterwards quotes the different opinion of others who take up this rejected connection and in whose opinion one should interpret: Through beef or milk and milk-rice.'173
As a matter of fact it would be more than curious if, in the midst of this impressively long meat-list, in the case of the cow, suddenly only the milk and not the flesh would be mentioned, and we would probably even then prefer the view of the 'others' if it were not be confirmed by the Āpastamba-Dharmasūtra. For there (2, 16, 26-28) we read: samvatsaram gavyena prītiḥ, bhūyāmsam ato māhisena, etena grāmyâraṇyānām paśūnām māņsam medhyam vyākhyātam. Bühler translates:
Beef satisfies (the fathers) for a year, buffalo's (meat) for a longer (time) than that. By this (permission of the use of buffalo's meat) it has been declared that the meat of (other) tame and wild animals is fit to be offered.
With this rendering of gavya as beef', he finds himself in agreement with the [58] commentary which explains on vs 26 (samvatsaram gavyena prītiḥ) that since in the following the word 'meat is used, here too the issue is about meat (uttaratra māņsa-grahaņād ihâpi māmsasyâiva grahaņam).
On examining the other legal treatises, we find in Baudhāyana no menu card for the fathers at all; in Vasiştha, only one stanza,174 in which nevertheless milk and milk-rice (payas and pāyasa) maintain a place of their own beside vegetables and meat, and that without gavya. When, in the face of Baudhāyana's complete silence and the scantiest treatment in Vas. and Ap., Gautama (15, 15) offers an although summarising nevertheless considerably more detailed list which, with regard to gavya, payas and pāyasa, 175 seems to agree with Manu, this may perhaps be appreciated, as in terms
173 śrutânumatayoḥ śruta-sambandhasya balīyastvād gavyena payaseti sambandhaḥ,
na māmsena prākaraņikena. anye tu ca-śabdam samuccayârtham pathi-tvā
vyākhyānayanti: māmsena gavyena payasā pāyasena vā. 174 Vas. 11, 40: madhu-māmsais ca śākais ca payasā pāyasena ca / eșa no dāsyati
śrāddham varsāsu ca maghasu ca. 175 I conclude this from Bühlers translation: The fathers are satisfied ..., for
twelve years by cow's milk and messes made of milk.' In the text edition of L. Srinivasacharya, Mysore, 1917, the only one available to me, the Sūtra containing the menu card for the fathers is entirely missing.
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of Meyer (1927: VI), as an indication of Gautama's not belonging to the ancient authors, but 'at the end of our Smộti-series' (Differently Thieme 1971: 442 [WB]). With the remaining authors, the lists partly differ widely with regard to the kind and sequence of the animals ennumerated as well as to the specified periods of satisfaction, without showing a simple way to sort out this jumble or explain it meaningfully.
As to beef, milk and milk-rice, Vişnu (80, 12) has the formulation samvatsaram gavyena payasā tad-vikārair vā,176 and quite similarly Kātyāyana cited in the Krtyakalpataru IV p. 43 expresses himself; but his wording: ... nava meșa-māmsena, daśa māhisena, ekādaśa pārşatena, samvatsaram gavyena pāyasena payasā vā scarcely admits of a different interpretation than: '... by beef or through milk-rice and milk.' This is confirmed by him prescribing, as a preliminary, that the meat of he-goats, oxen and rams should only be used when it stems from sacrified animals, while for other kinds of meat this restriction does not apply.177 Completely unequivocal is finally the Paithīnasi also cited in the Krtyakalpataru (VI 44) [59] who, in several instances before, has pāyasena altogether separate from gavyena. In his text: ... ājena māmsena pañca, pāyasena șan māsān, śākunena sapta māsān, aştau māsān aiņeyena, nava māsān gavyena, ekādaśa māsān māhișena, one can translate gavyena only by 'beef'.
In recapitulation, we may state that beef originally belongs to the most favoured kinds of meat prescribed for the śrāddha-meal (and thus consumed by the brahmins invited to this meal). Several legal texts still convey this quite unequivocally; others completely omit beef; still others (just as Manu) apparently use the ambiguity of the expression gavya 'bovine' in order to avoid a clear declaration that possibly had become offensive then. Thus it is also significant that the older Manu commentary by Medhātithi, which today is recognised by us as the best one, still transmits the correct interpretation of gavyena alongside the wrong one, while Kullūka, who in India later came to the fore, only presents the incorrect one prevalent today.
176 Shortly before in the enumeration, Vişnu (80,9) mentions the Gayal (dom
esticated ox), and Jolly translates gāvayena by beef'. This, however, is not exact because, as we know from the well-known typical example of the
logicians for the analogism, the gavaya is only go-sadrśa, 'cow-like'. 177 chāgôsra-mesā alabdhaḥ, śeşāni kṛtvā labdhvā vā svayam mrtānām vâhịtya pacet.
The author of the Krtyakalpataru subsequently explains usra by anadvān.
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To the positive testimonies for cattle-sacrifice and beef-consumption enumerated so far, we may add a not unimportant negative one for cow-protection and veneration. When, as we noted above on p. (50), Aśoka proclaims an animal-protection edict, we should expect the cow at the top of the list of animals not to be killed. This is not only not the case; indeed the list actually includes the sandaka, the released bull that is, and when the prohibition to kill this sacred object of a pious donation emerges as all too intelligible and in fact self-evident, it follows from the particularization of the prohibition that, for cattle other than the released bulls, a prohibition to kill did not exist in the middle of the third century BCE and was not proclaimed by the pious emperor.
In accordance with this, the cow is completely missing in Manu, Yājñavalkya and Vişnu from the list of the animals not to be eaten (above on p. [17]), and even in Baudhāyana can at best be understood as included in the prohibition on eating any domesticated animal except goats and sheep. In Meyer's (1927:46) opinion, Manu, Yājñ. and Vişņu considered it 'certainly not worthwhile, even so much as to mention that the cow is not to be eaten'. That is even less credible when in the oldest Dharmasūtras we find an explicit, although, as we shall see, restricted permit on eating cows and oxen. Vas. 14, 45f. reads: dhenv-anaduhāv a-panna-dantāś ca. bhakşyau tu dhenv-anaduhau medhyau [60] vājasaneyake vijñāyate. Bühler translates this as: 'Not milch-cows, draught-oxen, and animals whose milk teeth have not dropped out. It is declared in the Vājasaneyaka that (the flesh of) milch-cows and oxen is fit for offerings.' Bühler has, no doubt inadvertently, left untranslated the word bhakşyau in the text. Except for this, Meyer (1927: 46) objects to the translation of medhya with 'fit for offerings'; it would be much more likely to mean: 'magical-ritually pure'. Accordingly he translates: 'However, in the Vājasaneyaka(-brāhmaṇa) the statement from the Scriptures is found that milch-cow and draught-oxen are kosher animals and thus edible.'
Now this Sūtra 46 of Vas. evidently corresponds exactly with the two sūtras Āp. 1, 17, 30f.: dhenv-anaduhor bhaksyam. medhyam ānaduham iti Vājasaneyakam, '(meat of) cow and ox is edible. According to the Vājasaneyaka, ox-meat suitable for sacrifice (is edible).' Here what Vas. has comprised into one sūtra is simply spread over two. In view of the evident parallelism, there can be no question of correcting, as done by Meyer, Āpastamba's bhaksyam to its opposite a-bhaksyam. Meyer substantiates his correction with the fact that in Ap. there is evidently the same contrast between the author's own
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doctrine and that of the former (of Vāj.) as that with Vas. Now in fact in Vas. 14, 45 the consumption of beef and ox-meat is generally prohibited, but in 46 an apparently opposite doctrine of Vāj. is quoted. However, we have exactly the same contrast also according to the uncorrected text of Ap., where sūtra 29 enumerates the cow as the last of a series of inedible animals,178 followed by the two sūtras 30f. just discussed with Vāj.'s doctrine.
I believe that everything will become clear when we understand the word medhya correctly in a very succinct sense in that we recall Kātyāyana's rule reproduced above (p. [58]), viz. that beef should be eaten at the Śrāddha only when it originates from sacrified animals: medhya is in the Vāj. quotation, which is common to Āp. and Vas., not simply 'suitable for sacrifice', but 'destined for sacrifice', consecrated for sacrifice or, more freely expressed, 'originating from a sacrificial animal'.
Accordingly I render Vas. 14, 45f.: 'cow and ox as well as animals whose milk-teeth have not yet fallen out (are prohibited), but according to Vājasaneyaka's doctrine cow and ox are edible, when it concerns sacrificial animals. Consequently, the concurrent doctrine of Ap., Vas. and Kāty. is that beef should only be eaten if it originates from a sacrificial animal. This rule will naturally become superfluous as soon as the claim is raised that only sacrificed or consecrated meat should be eaten. Earlier we [61] noted that this claim is characteristic for the second layer of the legal literature, the metrical Smộtis, yet is still alien to the first layer, the Dharmasūtras. We see this again confirmed now by the fact that our ancient authors mention a special rule on beef ascribed by themselves to an ancient Vedic authority, which becomes superfluous through the later general limitation of meat consumption to sacrificial meat, and hence can also be omitted by later authors such as Manu and Yājñ.179
178 eka-khurôstra-gavaya-grāma-sūkara-sarabha-gavām. 179 If the interpretation presented here is correct, then at least in this respect
it is clearly proven that Gautama is our latest Smrti for he teaches in 17, 30: dhenv-anaduhau ca, and 31: a-panna-dad-avasanna-vrthā-māmsāni, (Bühler:) '(Nor) milk-cows and draught-oxen. Nor the flesh of animals whose milk-teeth have not fallen out, which are diseased, nor the meat of those (which have been killed) for no (sacred) purpose. Therefore, the prohibition on cow and ox is not followed here by permission to use the beef of sacrificial animals, thus limiting the prohibition but, on the contrary, by the general prohibition characteristic for the later Smrtis regarding non-ritual meat (vrthā-māmsa).
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For the purpose of our investigation it follows that, at least in the theory of certain ritual directions, the cow already had a certain special position in the late-Vedic period, in as much as its killing and its consumption are only allowed at a sacrifice at which, however, they remain common and permitted. This does, on the one hand, accord with what we shall have yet to say on the position of the cow in the Veda and has, on the other hand, evidently still nothing to do with ahimsā and the cow-taboo in the modern sense.
The Gahapatijātaka (199) shows, for example, that the rule to consume only the beef of sacrificial animals was, however, by no means generally followed in that at a famine the inhabitants of a village let the patil give them an old cow, the meat of which (vs 2: mamsam jaraggavam) they eat and promise to pay back in rice two months after the new harvest. The account of the consumption of the old cow is all the more credible as this feature is only of secondary significance for the story, which is actually a story of adultery. It is of particular interest, however, as a striking refutation of the rationalist explanation or justification of the sanctification of the cow which reads into it the judicious protection of the indispensable working helper and milk-supplier before its destruction in times of hunger.
A testimony to beef consumption which again admittedly cannot be accurately dated, but in any case is comparably late, is the most well-known medical text-book, the Suśruta-Samhitā. At this point, it goes without saying [62] that physicians are basically characterized by a remarkable unscrupulousness with regard to meat eating. In the important chapter on foodstuffs and their medical qualities and therapeutic value, meat plays a significant role; and a formal cookbook of meat dishes and broths, presented to us on that occasion, stresses that it is not a matter of grey scientific theory. Physicians, however, do not make any distinction at all between kosher and non-kosher animals: among the numerous animals they divide into a number of classes according to various principles and of which they specify the qualities of their meat, those permitted and those prohibited by the Dharma works stand indiscriminately side by side and mixed up.
With Susruta (Sūtrasthāna, Chap. 46) the cow – after the horse and the mule, but before ass, camel, goat, sheep and fat-tailed sheep - belongs to the 'village animals' (grāmya), and in vs 89 it is said: 'Beef is a good remedy for asthma, cough, catarrh, chronic fever, exhaustion and for quick digestion; it is purifying (pavitra) and alleviates wind.'180 Moreover, Susruta (Śarīrasthāna 3) deals with pregnancy whims. First he explains the well-known doctrine
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according to which, in order to avoid disadvantageous consequences for the child, such cravings must be fulfilled; then for a series of cravings he lists what from them can be concluded for the nature of the expected child. In vs 25 he says: '(With a longing) to eat a monitor lizard's meat (she gives birth to) a sleepy and stubborn (dhāraṇâtmaka) son, (with a longing) for beef, by contrast, a strong one and one forbearing all hardships.'181 Now pregnancy whims, particularly also for impossible or offensive and forbidden things (for example, blood or human flesh), are certainly favourite fairytale motives; but when a medical textbook enumerates cravings which, according to its instructions, must be complied with, the objects of these cravings can only be 'possible' and 'proper', and if in this context beef is actually connected with an extremely favourable prognosis for the child, we can only deduce from this, just as from the treatment of beef in the chapter on foodstuffs, [63] that for Susruta beef is not only an inoffensive but even an esteemed food.
In its original form Suśruta's textbook belongs ‘at the latest to the first century of our era'; but the text we have now has been completed and revised, and that either in the sixth or the tenth century,182 What we read in it can still be much older than 'Susruta'. but on the other hand the revisor (pratisamskartr) in the sixth or tenth century has still kept it. We can, therefore, formulate accordingly: in the special tradition of physicians, beef is an esteemed food, and a craving for it during pregnancy - which can and must be fulfilled - is a good omen; an important doctor of at least the sixth, perhaps even of the tenth century CE, did not see any occasion to suppress the passages teaching this.
Accordingly we have ample evidence of cow slaughter - even non-sacral - and beef consumption in Indian antiquity and right up to the Middle Ages. Moreover, how significant a role is played by the cow already in the oldest period of the Vedic religion is so well
180 śvāsa-kāsa-pratiśyāya-visama-jvara-nāśanam / śramâtyagni-hitam gavyam
pavitram anilâpaham. Bhishagratna's translation (1907: I 487) runs: 'Beef is holy and refrigerant, proves curative in dyspnoea, catarrh, cough, chronic fever and in cases of a morbid craving for food (atyagni), and destroys the deranged vāyu.' - See also Jha 2004: 99 where pavitra is rendered by
'holy' (WB). 181 godhā-māmsâśane putram su-şupsam dhāraṇâtmakam / gavām māmse tu
balinam sarva-kleśa-saham tathā (sc. prasūyate). 182 See Renou-Filliozat II 1953 S 1635.
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known that there is no need for a closer explanation; it was after all the most important possession of the Aryan, just as that of the Italic peoples, with whom pecunia, derived from pecus 'livestock', 183 became the term for money; gavisti, 'search for cows, need of cows' are familiar Ṛgvedic terms for the campaign or raid. 184 Thus the whole Rgveda is full of heavenly bulls and cows, of cow and milk symbolism, wherein poetic metaphor and mythological speculation reciprocally fructify and often blend inextricably. With the Iranian cousins things are, as is well-known, similar, although the Iranists' dispute about the significance of the cow, and its protection under Zarathustra makes it difficult for the Indologist to refer to the circumstances there comparatively. Nevertheless there is one feature in particular which appears to me as clear as it is characteristic.
In the classical Hindu ritual, as it holds good still today, the five products of the cow, the pañcagavya, to which urine and dung belong along with milk, sour milk and butter, are important purificatory and cleansing agents. The prescriptions of the law texts concerning the utilization of the first two, which are to be consumed for atonement too, have often excited the scorn and disgust of modern Europeans. It is less known that even with the Indian Zoroastrians, the Parsis, [64] cow urine actually plays an exceptional role. It is precisely the member of this small religious community, which is considered particularly progressive and open to modernity, who are, for example, still essentially bound to washing hands, feet and face with cow's urine as the first thing after getting up in the morning.185
183 Pecus~ Sa. paśu 'cattle, domestic animal' (MW) is, however, a general term, not 'cow' (WB).
184 Cf. Jha 2004: 38 (WB).
185 In his book Zoroastrian Theology from the earliest times to the present day, Dhalla, 'High priest of the Parsis of North-western India', writes (1914: 309): 'Bull's urine, or golden water, as it is now called, has been an indispensable article in the purificatory rites and ceremonial ablutions among the Zoroastrians from the earliest times... A most extravagant sanctity came to be attached to the drinking of it. Elaborate rituals are now performed over the liquid, and the drinking of this consecrated fluid forms an indissoluble part of certain Zoroastrian ceremonials ... this sanctified liquid is the very life of religion.' (p. 350) The very first thing that a Parsi is expected to do immediately after leaving his bed is to take a handful of bull's, or cow's or she-goat's urine and, upon reciting a spell composed in Pazand, to rub it over his face, hand and feet. The reformer declared that the filthy practice was highly objectionable, and should be done away with. This shocked the sentiment of righteousness in the orthodox believer. He retorted that the liquid had great purifying

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As the rules on cow's urine, the gaomez, already appear in the Awesta, the conclusion is inevitable that in ancient Aryan time, before the Aryan immigration to India that is, the Aryans used the urine of the cow for ritual purification. With the Aryans, therefore, the cow was sacred - if one does not want to understand that word incorrectly - which, however, did not stand in the way of its slaughter and consumption: it is not particularly remarkable that a sacred animal is actually favoured for sacrifice, but it is crucial that 'cow protection' in the modern Hindu sense, which is characterized by a taboo on slaughter and a prohibition on consumption, is not yet the point.
Or can after all perhaps a first sign of protest against cow slaughter be found, does one root of the ahimsă extend into the Rgveda?
Wilhelm Schulze (1933: 207) wrote:
Early on the protection of the obligation to humanity at least started to be extended early onto the animals. Even beginnings of a development which has been stringently brought to a conclusion in the Indian religions as ahimsā, are to be found already in ancient Hellas ... They will have continued the certainly age-old prohibition to sacrifice the workmate of man, the plough-bullock, [65] which, handed down in connection with the previously discussed burial obligation, certainly finds its proper place also in the đpai Bovšúyɛlot, and to which one must connect the fact that in æg- and Atharvaveda aghnya (literally 'what should not be killed') confronts us as a familiar kenning of the cow, which was destined to become a sacred animal to the Indians.
Referring to this, B. Schlerath recently used the word aghnya as the main argument for the thesis 'that there must have been an opposition (to the cow sacrifice) in the Rgveda’.186 He points out that
qualities, and its use should be continued... Tracts and pamphlets were issued on both sides, and a heated controversy ensued in the Parsi press. The reformer today has given up the practice altogether, but the orthodox
continues still most scrupulously to use it every morning.' 186 Schlerath 1960: 133. In any case it appears to me misleading to con
clude from Atharvaveda 12, 4 and 5 'which threaten the violator of the brahmins' cow with punishment, 'that the rejection of slaughtering and the particular tending of dairy-farming belonged to the priestly circles'.
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aghnya is an inherited word, because it agrees with the ancient Iranian agənyā “cow' in Yašt 38,5. It is not clearly expressed why the cow should not be killed, but most of the verses in which it is named aghnyā speak of her as a producer of milk. After examining some references, he is finally of the opinion that:
When we compare the Rigvedic proofs with the Iranian ones, it follows that, as early as the Aryan period, besides the sacrifice of cattle and soma, probably favoured by the martial class to which the war god Indra was invited as a guest, and the culmination of which was the roasting and pressing, existed a butter libation and perhaps even an independent soma sacrifice, in the context of which the cow was seen as inviolable, 'aghnya'. Here seem to lie the common roots of later Indian vegetarianism as well as of the Zoroastrian damnation of false priests and their practices.
To begin with, general ahimsā-vegetarianism and cow taboo are thrown together here in an inadmissible manner, but we have no basis or indication for vegetarianism to have originated from cowveneration or started from abstinence from beef. Moreover, the attempt to parallel the rejection of traditional religion - particularly of the bloody cow sacrifice, by the solitary personality of a towering religious reformer, Zarathustra - with the Hindu [66] 'protection of the cow', which arose and prevailed gradually throughout centuries and was not clearly ascertainable at the beginning as well as in its various stages, seems very doubtful. Apart from this, Schlerath's explanation of the term aghnya as 'cow would rec
proof a fundamental investigation of all references, especially of the three rgvedic ones not mentioned at all by him, where the word is masculine, or the four AV. passages where a sacrificial cow is spoken to as aghnye.187 Because such an investigation, which is being prepared elsewhere,188 must not be anticipated here, the following observations can only be of a provisional nature.
re
La
In both AV. hymns the point is only to protect the cow entitled or belonging to the brahmin from any encroachment on the part of the Rājanya: only he should not violate or consume it, since he would, thereby, damage
the property of the brahmin. 187 RV 10,9,3. 11. 24; 10, 10, 1. 188 I thank H.P. Schmidt for oral and epistolary suggestions and comments
on which the following is partly based.
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Repeated attempts to attribute to the word aghnya another meaning or etymology than just 'not to be killed'189 show that, in view of the bovine sacrifices and other attestations of cow slaughter in Indian antiquity, this Vedic term for 'cow' is a crux. Thus Weber (1885: 306f.) writes:
I do not like to explain, either with the scholia and Lassen 1867 I 792, .aghnya 'cow', feminine of aghnya 'bull'... to mean 'not to be killed' or, with PW, 'not or, accurately, difficult to conquer, to cope with,' and would prefer to derive it from ahanya 'in broad daylight', cf. ahan ahanā 'day', and that with the same meaning: bright coloured, as usra, usrā, usriya, usriyā 'bull, cow; ray, light of day, brightness' belong to √ vas 'to be bright', cf. also conversely gaura 'bright coloured' < go.
Roth's quite implausible explanation of a-ghnya as 'difficult to conquer, to cope with' is already dropped in the small PW, where only 'm. bull, f. cow' appears as meaning; Grassmann says: 'm., the bull, as a rule f., the cow, as the one which is not to be hurt (han).' Weber's own explanation, as far as I can see, has found approval nowhere. In Mayrhofer's etymological dictionary it is not even mentioned; there, after equating it with 'Avestan agǝnyā milk cow', it is only stated that: 'The interpretation "the one not to be killed" (: a-1, hánti) is made very plausible by Schulze 1933: 207. Finally Bartholomae states in the Altiranisches Wörterbuch, col. 49 for agǝnyā 'milk cow', but advances no opinion, either here or in Arische Forschungen 3, 39, on the etymology.
Recently, however, Bailey has advanced quite a different etymology:190
For this word aganya- the etymological [67] connexion seems obviously to lie in the verb gan- 'abound, be exuberant', the Indo-European ghen- 'swell, overflow; fulness, well-being', leading to 'full of liquid' on the physical side and 'wanton' on the animal. This verbal base is frequent in Greek θεν-, φον-, φαν- as in εὐθένεια ‘fulness, flourishing
189 Thus it was - self-evidently-understood later as Mbh. 12, 263, 47: aghnyā iti gavām nāma, ka eta hantum arhati? | mahac cakārâkuśalam vṛṣam gām vâlabhet tu yaḥ may show.
190 Bailey 1957: 40-49. - Now see Mayrhofer 1992: I 46f. (WB).

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state', £údevńs 'prosperous'. For pov- and pav- are quoted πολυφόντης and φανάν θέλειν. It is found in Baltic and Slavonic: Lit. ganà 'enough', ganěti 'to suffice', Slav. goněti 'to suffice'.
Bailey further connects agənyālaghnya with Skt. ghaná, ahanya, ahaná and āhanás.
This new etymology would certainly remove all the difficulties with regard to the meaning; it is questionable, however, because of the initial a-. In it, Bailey is obliged to see a 'preverb a-"to"' which would go back to Indo-Eur. 0- and would occur in ÓKÉNXw, o karo and in Vedic abhvan. This meagre material, even with Bailey's further examples from Ossetic and Armenian, hardly suffices for a convincing interpretation of the a- as against the prevailing one of an a- privativum.191
There are, however, two possibilities to keep the prevailing explanation of aghnya without resort to Schlerath's theory of the Rgvedic opposition to animal sacrifice, both of which H.P. Schmidt referred me to.
aghnya 'not to be killed' might not signify 'what may not be killed' but rather 'what is impossible to kill. We have seen before that, according to a Rgvedic interpretation and one still represented in the Dharmaśāstras, killing in a sacrifice is not killing, and one assured the sacrificial horse that it would go to the gods without having to die or coming to grief. The kenning a-ghnya could thus indicate the cow as the privileged sacrificial animal, the sacrificial animal cat' ćçoxnv. Schmidt, however, has himself given up on this explanation (in a letter) because, as more precise examination would show, in the Rgveda the word would have nothing to do with the sacrificial animal. He believes now that only certain cattle might have been considered as a-ghnya 'not to be killed”, viz., the breeding bulls, the mother-cows and the milch cows.
Without wishing to anticipate a further discussion of the question, for the present I can only go so far as to say that, to me, the explanation of the euphemistic kenning for the sacrificial animal continues to be the more plausible. The designation of the sacrificial animal as 'what is not killed corresponds well to the otherwise meticulous avoidance of the word 'to kill' in connection with animal
191 Mayrhofer 1992: 94 ábhava- n. 'Unding, Unwesen ... (absurdity, sinister
doings, terrible state of affairs) (WB).
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sacrifice: sacrificing an animal is called, as is well-known, ā-labh 'to seize, to lay hold of', and the real killing which the priests not directly executing it are not allowed to observe,192 [68] is described as 'put to resť (samayati).
On the one hand, the fact that aghnya in the Veda ‘has nothing to do with the sacrificial animal can simply be explained thus that the ancient kenning (which is attested only once: Avestan agənyā) had long ago become a simple designation for cow when its literal sense was no longer felt, which is quite rare already in the Veda; Schmidt himself notes that it had become obsolete in the Brāhmaṇas. On the other hand, the assumption that the breeding or gregarious bull, the mother-cow and the milch-cow would have been designated as excepted from sacrifice, appears doubtful, because it presupposes that one had systematically kept back the most valuable animals
om the gods, whereas the contrary is not only to be expected but, occasionally, expressly demanded by the texts. A judgement is possible, as noted before, if at all, then only after a detailed examination of all the references; but either of the explanations and even Bailey's new etymology appear to me preferable to Schlerath's theory, which is far too incompatible with the other testimonies of the Vedic and post-Vedic literature.
Now if it is the case that in Vedic, indeed even in pre-Vedic times, cattle played an extraordinary role in mythology and ritual, and then later the newly emerging ahimsā ideal amalgamated itself with its 'sanctity', this could have had one result which would explain the unique position of the cow and the taboos concerning it in Hinduism. Indeed for instance even Jacobi, in his contribution 'Cow (Hindu) in the Encyclopaedia of Relegion and Ethics, saw no problem in tracing the sacredness of the cow in Hinduism historically from Aryan ideas and customs.193 If I, nevertheless, prefer to acknowledge, apart from this Aryan, also a significant non-Aryan, i.e. autochthone-Indian component, I am led not only by the analogy of the typically non-Aryan features of Hinduism, listed above in the discussion of the origin of ahimsā, features to which one should like to add even the ever so unique position of the cow; there is perhaps
192 Schwab 1886: 106. 193 In Crooke's essay (1912, mentioned above p. [55]) the conclusive point
of the transition from Aryan 'cow-veneration' with sacrifice and meat consumption to Hinduist killing and meat-taboo is not explained convincingly.
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even a direct indication that is certainly not strictly speaking proof, yet should by no means be overlooked.
As is well-known, most of the hundreds of seals of the Indus culture, whose representations are nearly the only source of our modest knowledge of its religion, bear [69] the picture of an animal, and the overwhelming majority of the animal seals depicts a slightly mythical animal, ordinarily designated as a unicorn which, however, is unmistakably based on an essentially bovine animal. Moreover, apart from these, ordinary cows, zebus and others without a hump are found. From that we may in any case and at least conclude that even in the pre-Aryan (or in one pre-Aryan) Indian religion, which by the way showed typically un-Aryan features of later Hinduism, the cow played an important role. This assumption is corroborated by some rare seals from which we can deduce that people at the Indus conducted the same cultural bull games as at the court of Minos in Crete. 194
An answer to the question of the origin of vegetarianism and cowveneration in Hinduism, which, without concrete proof, refers to a past our sources may never be capable of elucidating, may seem rather unsatisfactory. Yet, if it at least shows us the limits of our knowledge more precisely and blocks off superficial rationalist answers, something may nevertheless have been already gained. For the Indologist, it is indeed not a new experience that the pursuit of pressing problems in the present leads him back into the dim and distant past.
194 Cf. Fabri 1934/5: 93–101. Admittedly, the bull-leapings or -sacrifices at
the Indus, too, seem to have been connected with killing the animal; thus it is doubtful whether they can be used for our argument. In the same way bone finds may prove that the Indus valley people also ate beef (Marshall I 1931: 27; Mackay 1938: 139).
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(pages in (refer to German original)
a-bhakşya 64 [60] Abhayadeva note 24 (10 note] abuse of animals note 44 Agastya 29 [27] (with sacrificial
cakes consisting of kosher meat at a Soma scarifice), note 125 [40] (offers lifeless seeds in twelve
year sacrifice) agənyā 70 [65] ('cow' in Avestan) aghnya 69f. [65ff.] (for Alsdorf is the
euphemistic designation of the
sacrificial animal) ahimsa 52 [49] (Jainism not source
of -), 56 [53] (-of Asoka not of
Buddhist origin) ahimsā paramo dharmaḥ 6 [8] ahimsă problem 36 [34] (the animal
sacrifice as real obstacle in-) Aiyangar 44 [41] aja 43 [40] (meaning of - in ajair
yaştavyam) a-majja-mamsâsino 14 [13] amsala 59 (55] ('firm' or 'tender'?
For Alsdorf: 'unobjectionable
even during the dīksā') animal sacrifice 42 [40] (genesis
of -) animisa note 21 [8 note] ('fish'), 10
[10] (= 'fish' in Haribhadra's
scholion on Dasav 5, 1, 73) Apastamba 22 [22] (probably
pre-Buddhist) atéxetai TÕV Éuyóxov 53 [50]
('vegetarian') Asoka 52ff. [49ff.) (inscriptions),
55 [51] (as a pious Buddhist) avagraha note 105 (36 note]
Bailey 71f. [67] (on aghnya) Baudhāyana 22 [22] (probably
pre-Buddhist) beef-eating 66 [62] (medicinal use of
- purifying; in pregnancy
whims), 67 [63] (esteemed) bhaksya 64 [60] bījapūra-katāha 12 [12] ('lemon-pot'?) bones, see meat; note 27 (11 note]
(inauspicious) Bothra note 27 [11] (paraphrase of
Dasav) brahmins note 52 (19 note] (must
and ought to eat only sacrificial animals), 29 [27] (allowed to kill kosher animals), note 143 [47 note) (Kashmir - eat fish and
lamb) Bịhaspatismrti 44 [41]
(reconstruction of -) Buddha 4 [6] (not a vegetarian) Buddhism 52 [49] (part of common
Indian spiritual movement) Bühler 24f. [23f.] (on Manu), 30 [28]
(summary of 's views), 61 [57] (on gavyena payasā pāyasena vā), 64 [60] (oversees bhakşyau)
amsan Alsdorf: the diksa')
caste system 57 [54] (ritual
formation of -) cat kills cock note 29 (11 note 12]
(marjāra) Chapple note 163 [53 note] Charpentier note 36f. [13 note 36;
14 note 37] cock-meat 11 (11] (- of cock killed
by a cat)
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HISTORY OF VEGETARIANISM IN INDIA
compromises between old and new
views 18 (18] cow protection 58 [54] (-essence of
Hinduism according to Gandhi), 68 [63f.] (under Zarathustra), 70
[66] cow sanctification 66 [61] (rationalist
explanation of - refuted) [68] (for Alsdorf a blend of Aryan and
autochthone components) cow-taboo 58 [54] (not to be
explained by ahimsă alone) cow-urine, see gaomez cruelty to animals 16 [15]
Girnar 56 (53] (substitutes hida with
Patalipute) Glasenapp 59 [55] (cow-worship to
be traced back to primitive
perceptions) go-vikartá 59 [55] ('cow-carver' at
Vedic court not disreputable) guest 27 [25]
Deussen 37 (35f.] Devadatta 4f. [6] Devana Bhatta 46 [43] Dhalla note 185 164 note) (on use of
cow's urine as golden water by
Zoroastrians) Dharmaśāstras 22 [21] (second level
of lawbooks), 43 [41] Dharmasūtras 22 [21] (oldest level
of prose lawbooks) dharma-vyādha 32f. [30ff.) ('pious
hunter') dohada, see: pregnancy whims
*hadha note 161 (52 note] Haussleiter note 140 (46 note] hida 56 [53] (in Rock Edict V:
here, in Pāțaliputra) Hillebrandt note 170 (56 note] himsā is not dharma 42 (39) Hinduism 57 [54] (un- or pre-Aryan
elements of -) Hindus not all vegetarians 2 [3] horse sacrifice 37 [35] (in Rgveda),
note 129 [41] (in Krtyakalpataru) Hultzsch 55, 60 (52,56] human sacrifice note 130 [42 note]
Indus culture influence on cow
veneration 74 [69] Indus people not vegetarians
note 162 (53 note), note 194 [69] inertia of the old beside the new
45 [42]
fish with many fishbones 7 [8],
9 [10] five basic foodstuffs 4 [6] five-clawed animals 18 [17]
(consumption of -) flour 20 (20 note] (animals made of -) forest ascetics note 67 (21 note) (can
live on meat torn by beasts of
prey) four virtues (satya, a-krodha, dāna,
prajanana) 31 [29] (characteristic of the four varnas)
Jacobi note 22, note 27 [9 note], [11
note], [56], [68] (on the sacredness
of the cow as Aryan idea) Jainism 52 [49] (not source of
ahimsā; part of common Indian
spiritual movement) Jains 52 [49] (oppose brahmanic
sacrifice as part of battle against
br. religion) Jājali 40 (37] (ascetic taught by
tradesman Jājali) Jolly note 47 (17 note) (on kosher
animals), 25 [24] (on Vasiştha), 30 (28] (against Bühler)
Gahapati-jataka 66 [61] Gandhi 58 [54] gaomez 69 [64] (urine of cows used
by Zarathustrians) Gautama note 79 [61 note] (our
latest Smrti) gavisţi 68 [63] (in RV 'campaign,
raid') gavyena payasā pāyasena vā 61f. (571.),
63 [59] (Medhātithi on gavyena)
Kalighat note 130 (42 note] (goat
and buffalo sacrifices at -) Kālī sacrifices note 130,57
[42 note] (in Darjeeling) Kali-varjyas 48 [45] Kane 49 [46] Kapadia note 27 (11 note], 13 [13]
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SUBJECT INDEX
Kapila 36 [34] (discussion of - with
Syūmarasmi in Mahābhārata) killing animals does not lead to
heaven 25 (24) killing for sacrifice is not killing
25 (24] (Vasistha quotation) kosher meat 18 (171, 66 [62] Krtyakalpataru des Laksmīdhara
28 [26], 35 (33), note 129 (41),
48 (45), 63 [58] ksatriyas as traditional meat-eaters
50 (471 kukkuta-māmsa 12 [12] (see also:
cock-meat) kunimâhāra 13 (13]
'destined for sacrifice, originating from a sacrificial animal
(Alsdorf]) metaphorical designations note 27
(11 note] metempsychosis 57 (53) Meyer 44 [42] (on Visnusmrti as a
late work), 64 (59f.] (on medhya) Mitâksarā of Vijñanesvara 48 [45] mrgayu 29 (27) mutton in India actually is goat
meat 3 [5]
Nibandhas 22 [21] (medieval
commentaries), 45 [43] non-ritual meat note 179 [61 note]
(vịtha-mamsa)
Leumann 22 [9 note] levirate 17 (16) living beings created to be eaten
21 (20) lizard's meat 67 [62] (~ eaten in
pregnancy whims produces
sleepy and stubborn son) Lüders 18 [17] (on five-clawed
animals), 26 [25] (on Manu)
Ohanijjutti note 24 (10) Ohira (Mrs Suzuko - ) note 27
(11 note], note 30 (12 note] Oldenberg 59 [55] onions, see vegetables
d)
maccha note 21 [8 note] madhu-parka 23 [23] ('hospitality') majjāra-kadae note 29 [13] mamsa note 21 [8 note] Manu 17 (16] et passim Manu-smrti 22 [21] (oldest metrical
lawbook); - see below in Index
locorum mārjāra 12 (12] ('cat', cf. note 29
(11 notel) matsya, see maccha Mayo 16 [15] (author of Mother
India) meat with many bones 7 [8], 9 [10] meat-eating 19 [19] (Buddhist and
Jain views on qualified permission of -), 32 [31] (in ritual is not meat-eating), note 129 [41 note] (allowed in case of illness; karmic consequences of -), 47 [44] (when allowed by Manu), 50 [47]
(traditional - by ksatriyas) Medhātithi 63 [59] (two
interpretations of gavyena) medhya 65 [60] (not simply 'suitable
for sacrifice', but succinctly
Paithīnasi 63 [58] pañca-gavya 68 [63] Patel 13 (13) pațicca-kammam 5 [7] (Pāli: 'killing
done for someone's sake') Patil note 140 [46 note] pigeons 11f. [11f.] (prepared for sick
Mahāvīra) Pillar Edict of Asoka 54 [50] (fifth -),
54 [51] (seventh -) poggala note 21 (8 note] ('mass;
matter'), note 21 (8] (body, mass'), 9 (10] (= māmsa in Haribhadra's scholion on
Dasaveyāliya 5, 1, 73) pregnancy whims 66 [62] (Susruta
on ) pājā 44 [42] (yajña replaced by ) purusa-medha note 130 [42] ('human
sacrifice')
ram sacrifice in Rgveda 37 (35) Rangaswami note 160 (52 note] Rantideva 32 [30] (a king), 35 [33] Rau 59 [55] (on the go-vikartá at
court), note 169 [56] (on the
Brāhmaṇas) Revati 11, note 35 [11], [13 note]
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HISTORY OF VEGETARIANISM IN INDIA
Rock Edicts of Asoka 52f. (49ff.),
55 [51] (Small -) Rūpnāth 55 (52] (meaning of *hadha
in Rock Edict)
uddesiya (Amg. = Pāli uddissa)
15 (15) uddissa katam 5 (71 (Pāli: 'meat of
animal especially killed for
monk'), 15 [15] Ū Nu note 10 [6] (note; leading
exponent of Buddhism in
Burma) urine of cow 68 [64] (used by
Zarathustrians)
sacrifice 19 [18] (see Thieme),
37 [35] (of ram in RV), note 130 [42 note] (goat-, buffalo- and
human ) sanctification of the cow 66 [61]
(rationalist explanation refuted) sandaka 64 [59] ('released bull') Saudāsa 33 [31] (a king) Schlerath 59 [55] (on cattle sacrifice
in the Rgveda), 69 [65] and 72 [67]
(on aghnya) Schmidt 72 [67] (on a-ghnya) Schreiner note 99 [34 note] (against
Alsdorf) Schubring note 21 [9 notel, 14 [13] seeds 43 [40] (triennial - lifeless) Seyffort Ruegg note 163 (54 note]
(on vegetarianism in Buddhism) Sherpas 3 [5] (call Tibetan butchers) Sibi 32 [30] (a king) Sīha 5 [7] (Buddhist general),
note 29 (11 note] (devotee of
Mahāvīra) Śīlânka 9 (10) śrāddha 28 (26), 34 [32], note 129,
(41 note], 47 [44], 63 (59] (favoured meats prescribed for) śravana-phala 36 (33] (benefit of
hearing') sūkara-maddava 4 [5f.] (juicy pork
as cause of Buddha's death) Śūla-gava note 170 [56] ('spit-ox
sacrifice') Susruta 66 [62] (medicinal use of
meat)
Vasu 42 [39] (a king cursed by
seers), 42 [40] (disappears into underworld), 50 (471, 52 [49]
(his story adopted by Jains) vegetables 17 [17] (forbidden :
leek, garlic, onions,
mushrooms) vegetarian interpretation of Veda
text 41 [39] vegetarianism 3 [4] (~ and beef
taboo to be distinguished), 3 [5] (based on ahimsā), 41 [39] (connected with Vişnuism), 56 [53] (- of Asoka not of Buddhist origin; in Mahāyāna Buddhism connected with tathāgatagarbha doctrine
according to Seyffort Ruegg) Vicakhnu 40 [38] (a king protesting
against cow-slaughter at
sacrifice) Viyahapannatti 11 [11] (15 sūtra
557 on the sick Mahāvīra) vrtha-mamsa note 179 [61 note]
(non-ritual meat)
Weber 59 (55 note], 71 [66]
(on aghnya)
Thieme note 49 [18 note] (on Vedic
sacrifice as a stylistic banquet) three 5 [7] (- conditions of meat
consumption for monks), 42f.
[39f.] (-year old lifeless seeds) tolerance 55 [52] (religious - in
Asoka's Edicts) Tuladhāra 40 [37] (tradesman)
yajña 44 [42] (replaced by pūja) yajña-nindā 39 [37] ('reprimand of
the sacrifice') Yajñavalkya note 169 [56] (eating
only amsala beef) Yājñavalkya-smrti 43 [41] yati 28 [26]
Zarathustra 68 [63]
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INDEX LOCORUM
(pages in
refer to German original)
Ācārakānda (of Bphaspatismrti) 81-5 (S. 321f.) [41 note]
Baudhāyana II 4,7; 6, 2; 11, 15; 12, 8 [21 note] II 17, 29; 18, 2 [22 note] III 1, 13; 3, 6; 4, 1 (21 note] III 3, 19 [22 note]
Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 3,4,6 [18 note; 34 note]
Bhagavatapurāņa VII 15, 7f. [47]
Apastamba I 17, 15 and 19 (21 note] I 17, 30f. [60] II 16, 26-28 [57] II 17, 26-18, 3 [21 note] III 9 [56]
Dasaveyaliya Ch. 3 and 4 (15) 5, 1, 73 [8 note, 11] 5,1, 84ff. [10]
Gahapatijātaka vs 2 [61]
Asoka PE V [50f.] PE VII [51] RE I [49], [53] RE III [52] RE III; IX and XI (50 note] RE IV [50] RE V [53] RE VIII [50] RE XIII [52] Small RE [51]
Gautamasmrti 17, 30f. (61 note]
Harivamsapurāņa (of Jinasena) 17,69 (40 note]
Āśvalāyana Gșhyasūtra 1, 24, 30ff. (18 note]
Krtyakalpataru III 7 [26] III 190 (45 note] III p. 313f. [33 note] III p. 316 [41 note] IV p. 43f. [58]
Atharvaveda 10,9,3; 11; 24 [66] 10, 10, 1 [66] 12, 4f. [65 note]
Mahābhārata III 199, 3 and 5 [30 note] III 199, 10; 12; 19; 23f.; 28f. [31 note] XII 186, 3 (38 note] XII 246, 27 [37] XII 254ff. [37]
Āyāranga II 1, 10,5 [8 note] II 1, 10,6 [9]
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HISTORY OF VEGETARIANISM IN INDIA
5, 48f. [5], [24], [43 note] 5,50 (41 note] 5,51 [21], [44] 5, 52 [21 note] 5, 53f. (41 note] 5,56 (21], [42] 5, 131 (12 note] 9, 143f. [16]
Pānini 3, 4, 73 (18 note]
XII 254, 29 (37 note] XII 254, 44 [31 note] XII 257, 5ff. [38] XII 265, 1-3 (37] XII 265, 5ff. [38] XII 268 [34] XII 324, 1 (39 note] XII 327,73 [39 note] XIII 113, 8 [33] XIII 113-116, 15ff. [32f.] XIII 115, 16 (33 note] XIII 115, 26 [5 note] XIII 115, 45 (32 note] XIII 115, 52f. [33 note] XIII 115, 59f. [32] XIII 115, 61ff. [33] XIII 116, 12 and 23–25 (34 note] XIII 116, 22 (33 note] XIV 28, 8 and 12f. [35] XIV 28, 19-21 (36 note] XIV 28, 23b and 25 (36 note] XIV 91, 14 (39 note] XIV 91, 22f. (40 note] XIV 92, 34 [40 note]
Pāraskara Gșhyasūtra 1,3,26f. (18 note], [56] 3, 3,8 [56]
RV 1, 162, 21 [35]
Sankhāyana Gșhyasūtra 2, 15, 1 (18 note] 2, 16, 1 [23] 2, 16, 3 [25 note] 4, 19 (20 note]
Satapatha Brāhmaṇa 3,1,2,21 (55f.] 3,4,1,2 (18 note]
Susruta Sarīrasthāna 3,25 (62) Sūtrasthāna 46,89 [62]
Sūyagada II 2,72 [13]
Manusmrti 2, 14 [45] 3, 103 [25f.] 3, 105 [26] 3, 266–73 [57] 4,5-8 [23] 4, 212 [27] 4, 251 [28] 5,5-25 [17] 5, 22f. [27], [43 note] 5, 26 (19) 5, 26,56 [43 note] 5, 27 (32 note], [41 note] 5, 27-44 (18], [28], [42] 5, 27-56 [41] 5, 28; 29; 30; 32 [20], [31] 5, 28-30 [42] 5, 31; 33; 34; 38; 41: 43 (19 note] 5,32; 39; 44 (19) 5,32 [20], [41 note] 5, 35 [26] 5,36 (41 note] 5,38 (26] and [41 note] 5, 39 (19], [24] 5, 39-44 [24 note] 5, 44-55 [20] 5, 45 [44]
Trişaştisalākāpuruşacaritra
(of Hemacandra) VII 2, 362-514 (40 note]
Uttarajjhāyā 5,9 (13) 7,5-7 (13] 12 and 25 (47 note] 12,38f. [48] 12.41 [48] 19,69f. [14] 25, 23 [48] 25, 30 (48f. note]
Uttarapurāna (of Gunabhadra) 67,330 (40)
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INDEX LOCORUM
Uvavāiya (ed. Leumann) 56 p. 62 [13]
Vinaya I 237f. [7] II 197 [6]
Viyāhapannatti 8, 9 [13] 15 sūtra 557 (Fol. 685b) (11]
Vasistha IV 4–7 [29] IV 4 and 5-8 [22] IV 6 and 7 [24] IV 7 [24 note; 26] IV 8 (18 note] VIII 4f. [25] VIII 5 [26] VIII 8 [25] XI 34 [26] XIV 12 [21 note] XIV 13 [28] XIV 14f. [27] XIV 27 (12 note] XIV 45f. [60]
Yājñavalkayasmrti 1, 109 (18 notel 1, 179 (41 note] 1, 180 [27], [44] 1, 181 [41 note] 1, 192 [12 note]
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Appendix I REVIEWS
by J.C. Heesterman
Ludwig Alsdorf, Beiträge zur Geschichte von Vegetarismus und Rinderverehrung in Indien (= Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur in Mainz, Abhn. der Geistes- und Sozialwiss. Klasse, Jahrg. 1961, Nr. 6). Wiesbaden, in Kommission bei Franz Steiner Verlag GmbH., 1962. 69 pp.
Vegetarianism, or rather ahimsā, and sanctity of bovine animals (not only the cow, as the author rightly stresses), although never general or even valid for the majority of Hindus, have come to be recognized as the hallmark of Hinduism. Patriots in search of national identity have invoked these doctrines. They can be said to be part of the national ideology of modern India. For all that, they put baffling problems to the administrator and the economic planner. An inquiry into origin and cause of the twin doctrines does not only present an academic interest, it has a bearing on India's present-day reality as well. It is therefore to be welcomed that Professor Alsdorf compressed his findings in an eminently readable essay, that should appeal also to the non-sanskritist.
In accordance with the title the author's viewpoint is purely historical. The problem he has set himself concerns the historical development of the twin doctrines, not their meaning. Paraphrases like 'magisch-ritualistisches Tabu auf das Leben', p. 15, will not be intended as an explanation. Accordingly the author seeks an answer to the question when and in what form the twin doctrines arose and developed; or rather, when and how they manifested thernselves in the texts. The Vedic texts do not know the ahimsā doctrine and enjoin the killing of cow and bull at certain occasions (e.g. at the ceremonial reception of a guest). It is only in the later dharma literature that the ahimsă doctrine and the inviolability of the cow find full expression. The matter is further complicated by the fact that the dharma texts contradictorily contain both the Vedic injunctions and the rigorous
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APPENDIX I
demands of ahimsā and vegetarianism. The historical approach seems to impose itself. In the author's view the contradictions of the texts can mean only one thing: a chronological succession.
The demonstration centres on the relevant part of Manu (V,5–55), where three successive layers are recognized. The first layer is represented by the discussion on pure and impure food (5-25); there is no question of ahiņsā. This stage is also represented by the Dharmasūtras. The next stage comes with the verses 27-44, where ahimsā is the rule, except the case of Vedic injunctions when meat is allowed or even obligatory. The last stage is reached in 44–55, where ahimsā and vegetarianism are absolute.
The sanctity of the cow-rightly kept separate from ahimsā - shows a roughly parallel development. The special position of the bovine is abundantly attested in the Vedic texts. This did not preclude the consumption of beef (not much of an argument, however, for an otherwise unassailable case can be derived from the absence of the cow in the old lists of non-consumable meat, p. 59. The criterion is here, as the author has pointed out previously, impurity. One would hardly expect to find the cow among the impure animals). The next stage is found in some of the older smặtis, where eating beef is restricted to sacrificial occasions. This restriction is then, in the later smrtis, subsumed under the one regarding all meat. (Alsdorf's second layer in the development of ahimsā, above). Thus the sanctity of the cow has become intimately linked with the ahiņsā doctrine.
This clear-cut chronological frame has much to recommend itself to the Western scholar. I doubt, however, whether it can do justice to the Indian facts, even if we should limit ourselves to the texts. The limitations of the chronological perspective stand out clearly when the author, in his search for historical origins, is forced back away from the texts into the limbo of pre-Aryan civilization and the ruins of Harappa. Although the hypothesis of pre-Aryan origins of Hindu ideas and institutions is far from impossible, this reasoning also means that, because of lack of documentation, the problem is shifted out of sight and rendered all but meaningless. The author further surmises - quite consistently - that not only ahimsā and sanctity of the bovine, but also their opposite, (ritual) bloodshed, finds its roots in pre-Aryan civilization. Indeed, as the author observes, the juxtaposition of these opposites in pre-Aryan times is no more illogical than their existence side by side in Hinduism until the present day.
Even if, in some cases, we can feel confident that 'kritischhistorischer Betrachtung löst sich also das scheinbare Nebeneinander
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HISTORY OF VEGETARIANISM IN INDIA
widersprechender Vorschriften auf in das Nacheinander geschichtlicher Entwicklungsstufen' (p. 17), we must nevertheless admit ‘das so typisch indische Nebeneinander nach unserem Empfinden unvereinbarer Gegensätze' (p. 42 n. 1; cf. p. 54). One wonders how, in the Indian view, these opposites are reconciled. Are we forced to consider Indian culture as a meaningless jumble? Here a different line of inquiry can no longer be avoided. Having exhausted the historical question we are faced with the problem of meaning. Here only the beginning of an answer can be indicated. One could start with the apparent persistence of the two opposites. It would seem that, far from presenting an inconsistency, there is a link between them. The link can be illustrated by one of the author's own observations, namely that the monk (who does not kill) can lead a sinless life thanks to the sin of the layman (who does the killing for him).
Going further along this line we note that a similar situation seems to obtain in the Vedic ritual: the sacrificer has to abstain, among other things, from meat; the rtvij on the other hand is obliged to consume the meat. The sacrificer eats afterwards. The rtvij who would refuse to eat the sacrificial meat is threatened by Manu with dire consequences. It has been pointed out by Thieme that the basic pattern of the Vedic sacrifice is that of a banquet offered to both divine and human guests. Now the ceremonial reception of the guest (the sacrificial priest is expressly mentioned as such) involves the offering of a cow to the guest. The guest has to give the order for the killing (or he may order to set the animal free), that is, he takes the onus of the killing upon himself, thus enabling the host to partake of the meat. This is probably the reason why Buddhist and Jain monks, though practising ahimsā, originally could accept meat, on the condition that it was not expressly prepared for them (cf. p. 5ff.).
The ritual texts show a marked aversion to killing. Nevertheless the sacrifice is essential to the maintenance of life. Time and again life has to be rewon out of death. Therefore one party (ștvij, guest) has to take upon himself the onus of death so that the other may win life. Thus the sacrifice involves the participants in the ever recurring alternation of life and death.
The decisive point in the development is the breakthrough, out of the vicious life-death circle, that is, the rise of the renunciatory way of life, where death is no longer periodically conquered, but permanently eliminated. It would seem that it is in this direction that we have to look for the meaning of ahimsā, the avoidance of death,
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APPENDIX I
death being otherwise inextricably connected with life. Ahimsā therefore is proper to the renouncer of the world, its opposite belongs to the sphere of the man-in-the-world. The interaction, as L. Dumont has pointed out, between these two spheres (in Indian terms nivetti and pravrtti) seems to be central to Hinduism (past as well as present) (cf. L. Dumont, ‘Le renoncement dans les religions de l'Inde', Arch. de Sociologie des Rel., no. 7 (1959) 45-69). If I am right this may explain the persistent juxtaposition of the irreconcilable opposites. At the same time it would seem that the search for meaning may deliver a clue to the problem of origin as well.
These few and necessarily sketchy reflections cannot possibly do justice to the author's many interesting and detailed observations (e.g. on the supposed Buddhist and Jain origins of ahimsā; Buddhism and Jainism are shown, together with brahmanism, to participate in a common movement). The reviewer's reflections are meant as a tribute to the stimulating quality of this interesting study. Professor Alsdorf has given us a most welcome contribution to our knowledge of Indian religious concepts and practices.
J.C. Heesterman, Leiden
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Appendix II THE ORIGIN OF AHIMSĀ
by Hanns-Peter Schmidt*
Ahimsā is one of the central ideas of Indian religions, and though the doctrine of 'non-violence' - literally 'non-injury (to living beings) – is not universally followed in India, there will be only few who do not at least pay lip-service to it. Inspite of its great importance for the religious attitude of the Indians, the history of the idea of ahimsā has rarely been investigated, and the handbooks on Indian religions generally devote little space to it.
In modern India ahimsā is inseparably connected with vegetarianism, but it is known since long ago and has recently been thrown into relief by L. Alsdorf in his contributions to the history of vegetarianism and cow-worship in India 195 that neither the Buddha nor the Jina were vegetarians though they propagated ahimsā. The Buddhist and Jaina monks or ascetics subsisted on begged food, and the main condition was that the food was neither prepared by the monk himself nor prepared especially for him. This applied to any kind of food if it contained meat or not. That originally ahiņsā had nothing to do with vegetarianism becomes obviously if one considers the strict animism of the Jaina doctrine according to which the whole world is animated - not only animals
The numbers given in square brackets in Schmidt's present article relate to the original page numbers. Mélanges d'Indianisme à la Mémoire de Louis Renou. Publications de l'Institut de Civilisation indienne 28. Paris:
Editions E. de Boccard, 1968. 195 'Beiträge zur Geschichte von Vegetarismus und Rinderverehrung in
Indien' (Akad. d. Wiss. u.d. Lit. Abh. d. geistes- u. sozialwiss. Kl. 1961. Nr. 6. Wiesbaden 1962), 5 sqq. (J.C. Heesterman's review of Alsdorf's work in IIJ 9, 1966, 147-149, appeared after this paper had been submitted to the editors).
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and plants but also the elements earth, fire, water and air consist in atomic individual souls. This involves that the Jaina monk is to avoid beating and heating water, handling fire and using a fan since he would thereby injure water-, fire- and air-souls. He is to accept only food which has been prepared, i.e. killed, by others, including water [626] which must be boiled. Only in this way he is safeguarded against any complicity in depriving an animate being of its life.196
Alsdorf (loc. cit., 15) has rightly stressed the fact that the concept of ahimsā as we meet it with the Jainas is not based on ethical ideas but on a magico-ritualistic dread of destroying life in any form. He has also realized that the emergence of the 'non-violence' movement is part of the All-Indian religious development and cannot be credited to the reform-religions of the Buddha and the Jina (loc. cit., 49). In his treatment of the Brahmanic sources he begins with Manu's rules on meat-eating. He has convincingly demonstrated (loc. cit., 17 sqq.) that they contain three layers which constitute three successive stages of historical development. In the first layer the eating of kosher animals is taken for granted; in the second meateating is prohibited in daily life, but allowed and even compulsory in the ritual; and in the third we find a strict vegetarianism which advises against animal sacrifices. 197 In the earlier juridical texts only the first stage is attested.
Manu's rules against meat-eating are based on the ahimsa-doctrine, and this doctrine goes - in Manu's view, too - beyond vegetarianism, since at least plants are included in the category of animate beings. When the most recent layer of Manu's rules proclaims rigid vegetarianism, it would seem that vegetarianism is either a special development of the ahimsa-doctrine or is grafted on it.
Concentrating his attention on the history of vegetarianism, Alsdorf has lost sight of the difference between ahimsā and vegetarianism. Though, in the discussion of the epic material (loc. cit., 29 sqq.), he does not fail to notice the fact that in these texts the consumption of seeds capable of germination is considered as himsā 'injury', too, he does not attempt to fix the point at which and the reason why vegetarianism became the main-stay of the ahimsā-doctrine.
I must admit that I do not know the solution of this problem either. One might think that vegetarianism is the popularized form of the
196 Cf. W. SCHUBRING, Die Lehre der Jainas (Berlin 1935), S 104.105.154.
ALSDORF, loc. cit. 14 sq. 197 Manu does not openly condemn the Vedic sacrifice, but rather propagates
the superiority of strict vegetarianism.
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ahimsa-doctrine which was originally restricted to the ascetic. But this suggestion is a mere guess and remains rather unsatisfactory all the more since I am not able to substantiate it on the basis of our sources.
[627]
Alsdorf (loc. cit., 53 sq.) conjectures that the origin of ahimsă and vegetarianism is to be sought in the pre-Aryan Indus-civilization. This is contradicted by the finds of animal bones at the sites of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, which rather show that the Indus people were non-vegetarians. 198 Moreover, there are, as far as I see, no traces of similar ideas to be found among the non-Aryan population of India - not influenced by the Brahmanical culture - which could justify the assumption that ahimsā and vegetarianism did not originate from conceptions evolved among the Aryans.
It has long been realized that the vows of the Buddhist and Jaina monks, among which the vow of ahimsā stands first, closely agree with those of the Brahmanic renouncer. 199 Alsdorf does not enter into a discussion of this matter, obviously, because it does not furnish any material for the history of vegetarianism. If, however, we want to find out the origin of the more comprehensive idea of ahimsā and to understand its magico-ritualistic background - which has been recognized but not explained by Alsdorf - we must search for the specific motives on which the rule of ahimsā for the Brahmanic renouncer is based.
This I propose to do in the present paper. I take as a starting point all the contexts in which the injunction of ahimsā is given by the Manu-Smrti200 – which reflects a fully developed ahimsadoctrine - and try to trace them back to earlier sources. Among these the Dharmasūtras of Āpastamba, Baudhāyana, Vasiştha and
198 Cf. the sources quoted by Alsdorf himself, 1. c., 69 n. 1. 199 Cf. H. JACOBI, Jaina Sutras I (Sacred Books of the East XXII, Oxford 1884),
XXII sqq., and the earlier authorities quoted there. 200 For the sake of brevity I have refrained from discussing the parallels from
the Mahābhārata. Much material from this source is found in 0. STRAUSS, 'Ethische Probleme aus dem Mahābhārata', Gior. d. Soc. As. Ital. 24, 1912,
194-335, and ALSDORF, loc. cit., 29 sqq. 201 The chronology, absolute and relative, of the Dharmasūtras is a matter
of controversy. It cannot even be asserted that in their present form they are pre-Buddhistic. There is, however, no evidence that they either
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Gautama201 provide the bulk of the material and help to pave the way back to the original source in which the idea of ahimsā was conceived. [628]
1. According to Manu ahimsā is the duty of all the four classes (varna): 'Non injury, truth, non-stealing, purity, control of the senses - this Manu has declared to be the comprehensive law for the four classes. 202
A similar rule is known to the Kauțilīya Arthaśāstra, which is certainly older than the Manu-Smrti: '(The svadharma) of all (classes and orders of life, āśrama) are non-injury, truth, purity, freedom from envy, freedom from malice, and indulgence.'203
Non-injury as a duty of all is mentioned by Vasiştha,204 too, but here the sūtra may be either an interpolation or, as Alsdorf (I. c., 29) surmises, a secondary modification of an old śloka which did not contain the word ahimsā. At any rate, comparable injunctions do not occur elsewhere in the older law-books.205
2. Ahimsa-vegetarianism: Animals are not be killed and eaten at all. This is advocated in the third layer of Manu's rules on meateating (5, 45–56).206 The gist of the whole is not so much a condemnation of the Vedic ritual and its animal sacrifices, but rather the propagation of a renouncer-like conduct. This appears in 5, 56: "There is no sin in eating meat, in (drinking) spirituous liquor and
presuppose or oppose Buddhist or Jaina teachings. As to their relative chronology, recent research points to the conclusion that Apastamba and Baudhāyana are considerably older than Vasistha and Gautama. Cf. B.K. GHOSH, Indian Historical Quarterly 3, 1927, 607 sqq. J.J. MEYER, Über das Wesen der altindischen Rechtsschriften (Leipzig 1927), passim. W. GAMPERT, Die Sühnezeremonien in der altindischen Rechtsliteratur (Prag 1939), 6 sqq. S.C. BANERJEA, The Dharma-Sūtras. A study in their origin and development
(Calcutta 1962), 37 sqq. 202 M 10, 63 ahimsā satyam asteyam saucam indriyanigrahaḥ, etam sāmāsikam
dharmam cāturvarnye 'bravīn manuḥ. 203 Kaut 1, 3, 13(ed. KANGLE, Bombay 1960) sarveşām ahimsā satyam saucam
anāsūyānțsamsyam kşamā ca. 204 Vas 4, 4 sarvesām satyam akrodho dānam ahimsā prajananam ca. 205 BÜHLER, The Laws of Manu (SBE XXV. 1886), 416, compares Gaut 8, 23,
but this rule refers to a bahuśruta and is to be grouped with the ahimsa
rules for Brāhmaṇas (below II 4 B). 206 With the exception of 52, which rather belongs to the layer 5, 31-44.
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in sexual intercourse; this is the natural way of living beings, but abstention bears great fruits. 207 Alsdorf (loc. cit., 21) thinks that this śloka has been taken from some other context in order to soften down the glaring contradiction between the demands of strict vegetarianism and the milder opinions of the preceding passages. But it is more probable that it has been added in order to put the whole discussion into its proper context - that of the renunciatory way of life which is the ideal of the Brāhmaṇa.
An attack on the Vedic sacrifice is contained in 5, 53: 'He who for a hundred years annually sacrifices a horse-sacrifice, and he who [629] does not eat meat (at all) - for both of these the fruit of their meritorious deeds is the same.'208 The author concedes that the sacrifice has its merits, but he insinuates its practical inefficiency and implies that by avoiding meat one attains without effort everything one desires.209
In the next sloka we read: 'By eating (only) kosher fruits and roots and by eating (only) the food of silent ascetics, one does not gain the same fruit as by complete avoidance of meat.'210 If the food of the muni consisted only of vegetarian diet, this injunction would be senseless. Presumably munis were, at Manu's time, still accepting meat and also living on the flesh of animals killed by beasts of prey (cf. below II 5 B).
In 55, a pseudo-etymology of the word māmsa 'meat is given which reflects the primitive belief that the animal whose meat is eaten in this world will eat, in return, the eater in the next world: 'Me eat will in the next world whose meat I eat in this world; the wise ones proclaim this to be the meatness of meat (= this is why meat is called meat).'211
In the earlier sources no trace of strict vegetarianism is found. In modern times vegetarianism has led to substituting effigies of animals made of flour for the sacrificial victim. But this sacrifice
207 M 5, 56 na mamsabhakṣane doṣo na madye na ca maithune, pravṛttir eṣā bhūtānām nivṛttis tu mahāphala.
208 M. 5,53 varse-varṣe 'svamedhena yo yajeta śatam samāḥ, māmsāni ca na khaded yas tayoḥ punyaphalam samam.
209 Cf. M 5, 47 yad dhyāyati yat kurute dhṛtim badhnati yatra ca, tad avāpnoty ayatnena yo hinasti na kimcana.
210 M5, 54 phalamūlāśanair medhyair munyannānām ca bhojanaiḥ, na tat phalam avāpnoti yan māmsaparivarjanāt.
211 M5, 55 mām sa bhakṣayitā 'mutra yasya māmsam ihādmy aham, etan māmsasya mamsatvam pravadanti manīṣinah. The adaptation of the pun is that of C.R. LANMAN, A Sanskrit Reader (Boston 1884), 350.

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of piştapasu is unknown even to Manu. He does, however, mention pistapaśu in a different context (v. below II 3).
The earlier occurrences of piştapaśu have no connection with ahimsā or vegetarianism. In the Sārkhāyana-Grhyasūtra an offering of pairs of animals made of flour is prescribed for the full moon of the month Caitra.212 This sacrifice is completely isolated, and we have no means to tell why the animals were made of flour.
A similar substitute for animals is already known to the Srautaritual. In the Varuņapraghāsa a ram and a ewe are made of barley, and they are called anţtapaśū ‘untrue animals'.213 In the context of the Varuņapraghāsa there is no allusion to the prohibition (630) of animal-slaughter, and the reason why the animals are made of barley is obviously that barley is the grain belonging to Varuņa.
3. Ahimsā-vegetarianism with the exception of sacrificial victims. Manu 5, 31-44 teaches the duty of eating meat in the sacrifice, but prohibits it on all other occasions: ' "The eating of meat (is ordained) for sacrifice": this is transmitted as a divine rule. But practising (it) on other (occasions) is said to be a demoniac rule.'214 One does not do wrong by eating meat while honouring the gods, the fathers and guests, irrespective of the way in which the meat was procured.215 In 33, use is made of the same idea as in 55 (v. above II 2), but the lawful eating of meat is excepted from the evil consequences:
A twice-born man who knows the rules must not eat meat against the rules unless he is in distress. For, having eaten meat against the rules, he is, when dead, eaten by these (animals) without fail.216
In 43, however, himsā is prohibited also if one is in distress, unless it is prescribed in the Veda, and this applies to every Brāhmaṇa, in
212 SGS 4, 19 mithunānām ca yathopapādam pistasya krtvā. The later Vaikhānasa
Smārtasūtra 4,8 has a Caitra-offering with totally different offerings. 213 Maitrāyaṇi-Samhitā 1, 10, 12. Kāțhaka 36, 6. 214 M 5, 31 yajñaya jagdhir māmsasyety eşa daivo vidhiḥ smrtaḥ, ato 'nyatha
pravrttis tu rākşaso vidhir ucyate. 215 M 5, 32 krītvā svayam vāpy utpadya paropahrtam eva vā, devān pitymś
cārcayitvä khādan māmsam na duşyati. 41 madhuparke ca yajñe ca
pitrdaivatakarmaņi, atraiva pašavo himsyā nānyatrety abravīn manuḥ. 216 M5,33 nädyād avidhinā māņsam vidhijño 'nāpadi dvijah, jagdhvā hy avidhinā
māmsam pretas tair adyate 'vaśaḥ.
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whichever stage of life (āśrama) he may live.217 This shows that the rules given in 5, 31-44 are not all of the same origin but contain different views.
It is obvious that these rules are only meant for Brāhmaṇas since only they could partake of the sacrificial victim. That the other classes did eat meat and that there was no objection to it, appears from 34 where the sin of a hunter who kills deer for gain is considered to be less grave than that of one-we have to add: Brāhmana - who eats meat at random 218 If a Brāhmana has the desire for meat he is allowed to make an animal of ghee or flour, but he shall never wish to kill an animal at random.219
In 39, it is stated that killing (vadha) on ritual occasions is to be considered as non-killing (avadha) since animals were created for the sake of sacrifice by Svayambhū, and since the sacrifice is [631] meant for the welfare of the whole world.220 And injury (hiņsā) to moving and immovable creatures which is enjoined by the Veda is to be known as non-injury (ahimsā).221 The inclusion of immovable beings goes beyond the intentions of the context which is only concerned with meat-eating, but it represents an old conception mentioned also in 40: Plants, cattle, trees, (other animals) moving horizontally (like tortoises, etc.), and birds, which have met their death for the sake of sacrifice, attain again higher existences.222 The highest bliss is assured to sacrificer and victim alike: 'A twice-born man who knows the true meaning of the Veda and injures animals for these purposes (viz. guest-reception, sacrifice to gods and fathers) makes himself and the animal go to the highest state of existence (in heaven).223
The śloka Manu 5, 41 also occurs in Vasiştha 4,6 at the beginning of the chapter on impurity. Alsdorf (loc. cit., 24) reasonably suggests
inadi.
217 M 5,43 gļhe gurāv aranye vā nivasann ātmavān dvijah, nāvedavihitām himsām
āpady api samācaret. 218 M 5, 34 na tādríam bhavaty eno mrgahantur dhanārthinah, yādrśam bhavati
pretya vșthāmāmsäni khādataḥ. 219 M 5,37 kuryād ghrtapaśum sange kuryāt piştapaśum tathā, na tv eva tu vrtha
hantum paśum icchet kadācana. 220 M 5, 39 yajñârtham pašavaḥ systāḥ svayam eva svayambhuvā, yajño 'sya
bhūtyai sarvasya tasmād yajñe vadho 'vadhaḥ. 221 M 5, 44 yä vedavihitā himsā niyatāsmimś carácare, ahimsām eva tām vidyad
vedad dharmo hi nirbabhau. 222 M5, 40 oşadhyaḥ paśavo vrkṣās tiryañcah pakşiņas tathā, yajñārtham nidhanam
prāptāḥ prāpnuvanty ucchritīḥ punaḥ. 223 M 5,42 eşv arthesu paśūn himsan vedatattvārthavid dvijah, ātmānam ca paśum
caiva gamayaty uttamām gatim. Cf. 41.
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that it is an interpolation. The same holds good, in my opinion, for the occurrence of the śloka in Sankhāyana-Grhyasūtra 2, 16, 1, where it is quoted in the context of the madhuparka, the guest-reception. This (as well as the following) paragraph interrupts the rules referring to the persons to be considered as guests or not.
The older law-books do not mention the restriction of meat-eating to ritual occasions. But we read in the last section of the ChāndogyaUpanişad:
This Brahmā said to Prajāpati, Prajāpati to Manu, Manu to his progeny: He, who having returned from the household of his teacher after having learned the Veda and after having done in addition (to the study of the Veda) the work for the teacher according to the rules, and having established himself in a household (of his own) studies (the Veda) for himself in a pure place, raises law-abiding (students); who, having concentrated all his senses on the Self (soul), does not injure any living being except at the right place and time (i.e. in sacrifice); he, indeed, who conducts himself thus as long as he lives enters the world of Brahmā and does not return (i.e., is not reborn).224
This restriction of (632) injuring any being to the sacrifice agrees with the idea expressed in Manu 5,40 and 44. And the passage shows that the Brāhmaṇa had to practise ahimsā in daily life already in fairly early times.
4. Special injunctions of ahimsā are given for the Brāhmaṇa.
A. A Brāhmaṇa must, unless he is in distress, follow a means of livelihood which does not cause injury to living beings, or at least causes only little injury.225 Actually he shall as far as possible not follow the ways of the world at all for the sake of livelihood.226
224 ChU 8, 15 tad dhaitad brahmā prajāpataya uvāca, prajāpatir manave,
manuḥ prajābhyah: ācāryakulād vedam adhītya yathāvidhānam guroḥ karma skrtvā] atiśeşeņābhisamāvstya kuțumbe sthitvā śucau deće svādhyāyam adhīyāno dharmikan vidadhad ātmani sarvendriyani sampratisthāpyāhissant sarvabhūtāny anyatra tīrthebhyaḥ sa khalv evam vartayan yāvad āyuşam brahmalokam abhisampadyate na ca punar āvartate - [krtvā] is BÖHTLINGK's
emendation. 225 M 4, 2 adrohenaiva bhūtānām alpadroheņa vā punaḥ, yā vrttis tām samasthāya
vipro jived anăpadi. 226 M 4, 11 na lokavrttam varteta vrttihetoh kathamcana.
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Thus a Brāhmaṇa must avoid agriculture since it involves doing injury to living beings: ‘But a Brāhmaṇa or a Kșatriya, living by a Vaiấya's occupation, shall avoid with care agriculture which consists mainly in doing injury and depends on others. People think that agriculture is good, (but) this occupation is blamed by the virtuous: (for) the wooden (implement) with iron point injures the earth and the (creatures) living in the earth."227 The fact that the Kșatriya is here mentioned along with the Brāhmaṇa can hardly be interpreted in that way that the Kșatriya, too, must abstain from agriculture because it involves himsā. Most probably the Kșatriya is to avoid agriculture since it depends on others (parādhīna).
According to Gautama a śrotriya, a Brāhmaṇa well-versed in the Veda, is the final authority in doubtful law-suits ‘since he is incapable of injuring or favouring living beings'.228
In older times agriculture was not forbidden for Brāhmaṇas, and this rule is preserved by Manu 10, 82. But Gautama gives a restriction: 'agriculture and trade (are allowed to the Brāhmaṇa) if he does not do the work himself.129 The motivation for this rule is presumably that being engaged in worldly affairs would impede his proper occupation, the study of the Veda. But the idea of ahimsā comes in when Gautama mentions cattle for slaughter among the goods not to be sold by a Brāhmana living by the Vaisya's mode of subsistence.230 16331
Baudhāyana declares that, if a Brāhmaṇa is unable to attend to both, the study of the Veda and agriculture, the latter must be given up.231 For the Brāhmaṇa it is preferable to be poor in worldly possessions but rich in the knowledge of the Veda, and a verse praising ascetic ideals is added:
A fat roaring humped bull who does not restrain himself, who strikes moving beings, is violent, speaks as he likes, does not attain (the world of) the gods; but those who are emaciated and (small like) atoms, go there.232
227 M 10,83 vaisyapravrttyäpi jīvams tu brāhmaṇaḥ kṣatriyo'pi vā, himsäpräyām
paradhīnām kļşim yatnena varjayet. 84 krsim sādhv iti manyante să vșttiḥ
sadvigarhitā, bhūmim bhūmiśayāmś caiva hanti kaştham ayomukham. 228 Gaut 28, 51 yato 'yam aprabhavo bhūtānām himsānugrahayogeşu. 229 Gaut 10,5 krşivānijye căsvayamkyte. 230 Gaut 7, 13 pašavaś ca himsāsamyoge. 231 Baudh 1, 5, 10, 30. 232 Baudh 1, 5, 10, 31 na vai devān pīvaro 'samyatātmā rorūymanah kakudi
samaśnute, calattundi rabhasah kāmavādī kyśāsa ity anavas tatra yānti.
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If a Brāhmaṇa lives by agriculture, he shall plough with two bulls whose noses are not pierced and who are not castrated, and he shall not strike them with a goad but only coax them again and again.233
Baudhāyana gives the generally accepted rule that a Brāhmaṇa who cannot live by the means proper for his class may live like a Ksatriya; but he adds that according to Gautama the duties of a Kṣatriya are too cruel for him.234 The text transmitted under the name of Gautama does not contain this rule, but agrees with Baudhayana's own view 235
Baudhāyana's rule about the way in which a Brāhmaṇa should plough and the view attributed to Gautama show that there was a strong movement which tried to prevent the Brāhmaṇa from becoming involved in any kind of violence.
Under the same aspect an injunction given by Apastamba may be viewed. In the chapter on murder and homicide he says that ‘a Brāhmaṇa shall not take a weapon, not even if he only wants to inspect it'.236 Presumably this rule is given for the purpose to keep the Brāhmaṇa off from the remotest contact with the means of violence.
B. A Brāhmaṇa who is a snātaka can attain heaven by ahimsā and other vows: 'He who is persevering, gentle, controlled, does not associate with people of cruel conduct, does not injure (living beings), shall, if he follows these vows, win heaven by control (of the senses) and by liberality.'237 [634]
Ahimsa belongs to the means by which supernatural faculties are acquired: 'By continuous study of the Veda, by purity, austerities, and non-injury to living beings he remembers his former births.'238
From these passages it appears that ahimsa is a vow which is treated on the same level as other specifically Brahmanic vows which are, as a rule, not expected of the common man.
233 Baudh 2, 2, 4, 21 asyūtanāsikābhyām samuṣkābhyām atudann ārayā muhur muhur abhyucchandayan. Cf. Vas 2, 32.
234 Baudh 2, 2, 4, 17 neti gautamo 'tyugro hi kṣatradharmo brāhmaṇasya. 235 Gaut 7, 6.
236 Ap 1, 10, 29, 6 parīkṣārtho 'pi brāhmaṇa ayudham nādadīta.
237 M 4, 246 drdhakarī mṛdur dāntaḥ krūrācārair asamvasan, ahimsro damadānābhyām jaget svargam tathāvrataḥ. The other way round the same is formulated in 4, 170: A snātaka, who enjoys doing injury (himsarata) does not gain happiness in this world.
238 M 4, 148 vedabhyasena satatam saucena tapasaiva ca, adrohena ca bhūtānām jātim smarati paurvikīm.

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Ahimsa is also one of the vows by which the Brāhmaṇa can attain highest bliss, niḥśreyasa, lit. 'the state beyond which there is nothing better':
The study of the Veda, austerities, knowledge, control of the senses, non-injury, and service for the teacher are the best means to attain highest bliss.239
The best means, however, is the knowledge of the universal Self (atman), and the highest bliss is the union with the Self and the cessation of rebirths. The ritual acts prescribed in the karmakāṇḍa of the Veda cause the continuation of rebirths, they are pravṛtta, those prescribed in the jñānakāṇḍa cause the cessation of rebirths, they are nivṛtta.240 Therefore a Brāhmaṇa should give up the ritual acts and concentrate himself on the knowledge of the Self.241 This is virtually identical with renunciation (sannyāsa), which was considered to be the ideal conduct of the Brahmaṇa.
After enumerating the forty sacraments (samskāra) – that are the ritual duties of the Brāhmaṇa well-versed in the Veda (bahuśruta), Gautama defines the eight qualities of the soul: 'Compassion on all living beings, forbearance, freedom from envy, purity, freedom from exertion (in worldly occupations), auspiciousness, freedom from avarice, and freedom from covetousness.'242 He who is devoid of these qualities will not be united with Brahman, even if he possesses all the forty sacraments, but he who possesses all the eight qualities of the soul, though only a few of the sacraments, will attain the union with Brahman.243 Here ahimsa is not mentioned but the word dayā 'compassion' expresses a similar idea and can be looked upon as one of the positive aspects of ahimsa with which it is occasionally used side by side.
[635]
239 M 12, 83 vedäbhyāsas tapo jñānam indriyāṇām ca samyamah, ahimsa gurusevā ca niḥśreyasakaram param.
240 M 12, 85-93. The Atman-theory is defined in 91, 118, 125.
241 M 12,92 yathoktany api karmāņi parihāya dvijottamaḥ, ātmajñāne same ca syad vedabhyase ca yatnavān.
242 Gaut 8, 22-23 athāṣṭāv atmaguṇaḥ: dayā sarvabhuteṣu kṣantir anasuyā saucam anāyāso mangalam akarpaṇyam asprheti.
243 Gaut 8, 24-25 yasyaite catvārimsat samskārā na cāṣṭāv ātmaguṇā na sa brahmaṇaḥ sayujyam salokyam ca gacchati. yasya tu khalu catvārimsat samskārāṇām ekadeśo py aṣṭāv atmaguna atha sa brahmaṇaḥ sayujyam salokyam ca gacchati.

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Āpastamba recommends the snātaka to avoid all the mistakes like anger, etc. which tend to burn (= hurt) animate beings.244 This rule is repeated from the introduction to the chapter on penances where it is given in full. It is based on the Ātmantheory and can be compared with Manu's opinion regarding the knowledge of the Self. We shall return to it in the context of the penances (below II 7).
C. Baudhāyana gives special rules for Brāhmaṇa-householders who are called sālīna living in a huť, yāyāvara 'wanderer', and cakracara 'circle-goer’,245 and who subject themselves to certain restrictions with regard to their means of subsistence. These modes of life might be looked upon as preliminary stages which finally end in vānaprastha, the life of a hermit in the forest; the tenth mode of life is actually called vānyā vrtti. For a man who has chosen any of these modes of life all worldly duties cease, such as teaching, sacrificing for others, accepting gifts, and performing sacrifices other than those specifically prescribed.
In the context of the rules of purification obligatory for these householders, two verses are quoted which state that the internal purification or that of the self (soul) of creatures consists in ahimsā (or ahimsana) 246
This shows that they had to abstain from injuring living beings. There is, however, one particular vịtti called pālanī protecting%247 or ahimsikā 'not injuring'. It consists in seeking to obtain from virtuous people husked rice or seeds.248 Husked rice and seeds are devoid of
244 Āp 1, 11, 31, 25 krodhādīmś ca bhūtadāhīyān doşān varjayet. - Cf. also 2, 2,
5, 13 sarva-bhūtaparīvādākrośāmś ca (varjayet). 245 Baudh 3, 1-2. That the sālīnas and yāyāvaras are grhasthas, and not 'Ermites'
and 'Vagants', as J. VARENNE, Mahā Nārāyana Upanişad (Paris 1960), II, 82, erroneously translates, appears from Vaikh 8,5. There the salīna is a householder who attends only to his own ritual duties, the yāyāvara one who also sacrifices for others and teaches the Veda. yāyāvara presumably means 'moving frequently about (in performing sacrifices for others)'. What Baudh is giving are the rules for householders who wish to follow
certain ascetic ways of life. Cf. also Baudh 2, 10, 17, 3. 246 Baudh 3, 1, 26 śrūyate dvividham saucam yac chiştaih paryupāsitam, bāhyam
nirlepanirgandham antaḥsaucam ahimsanam. 27 adbhiḥ śudhyanti gātrāņi buddhir jñānena sudhyati, ahimsayā ca bhūtātmā manaḥ satyena śudhyati. The latter verse also occurs among the general rules for purification (v. below
II 7). 247 HULTZSCH, in his second edition of the text, reads phalani. 248 Baudh 3, 2, 13 tuşavihīnāms tandulān icchati sajjanebhyo bījāni vā. tuşavihīna
refers probably to bījāni, too.
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life - thus the Brāhmaṇa following the ahimsikā výtti accepts only food that has been killed by others.
These sālīnas and yāyāvaras are sacrificing in the self (ātmayājin) by offerings to the vital breaths (prāņāhūti).249 This mental sacrifice is characteristic for the renouncer.
[636]
5. A. The sannyāsin 'renouncer' or parivräjaka (pravrājaka) 'wandering ascetic' is subjected to the most rigid rules of ahimsā.
When entering the Order (āśrama) of the sannyāsin, a Brāhmaṇa offers a last sacrifice: Having the (sacred) fires in himself, a Brāhmaṇa shall go forth from his house. 250 He then gives a promise of safety to all the creatures: "The Brāhmaṇa, who having given fearlessness (= safety) to all the beings goes forth from this house, participates in worlds made of radiance.251 This promise will result in his own safety: 'For the twice-born man who has not even caused the slightest fear to living beings there will be no fear from anywhere after he is freed from his body.'252
In this context, abhaya and bhaya are quasi-synonyms of ahimsā and himsā. For, following his promise of abhaya, the sannyāsin has to take special safeguards:
He shall put down his foot purified by sight (i.e. after having made sure that he does not step on any creature), he shall drink water purified (= strained) by a piece of cloth, he shall utter speech purified by truth, his behaviour shall be purified by his mind.253
The essence of the sannyāsin's behaviour is described as follows: 'By the restraint of his senses, by the destruction of love and hatred, and by non-injury to living beings he becomes fit for immortality: 254 The aim of the sannyāsin is the liberation from
249 Baudh 2, 7, 12. This and the related texts on the manasa yajña or
prāṇāgnihotra are collected and commented upon by Varenne, 1. c., II, 69
sqq. 53 sqq. 250 M 6, 38 prājāpatyām nirupyesim sarvavedasadakşiņām, ātmany agnīn
samáropya brāhmaṇah pravrajet grhāt. 251 M6, 39 yo dattvā sarvabhūtebhyaḥ pravrajaty abhayam grhāt, tasya tejomayā
lokā bhavanti brahma-vādinah. 252 M 6, 40 yasmād anv api bhūtānām dvijān notpadyate bhayam, tasya dehad
vimuktasya bhayam nästi kutaścana. 253 M 6, 46 drstipūtam nyaset pādam vastrapūtam jalam pibet, satyapūtām vaded
vācam manahpūtam samācaret. Cf. 68.
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transmigration, from the samsāra, and the union with the highest Self (paramātman) which is present in all creatures: ‘By concentration he shall recognize the subtleness of the highest Self and (its) presence in the highest and lowest bodies (= creatures). 255 This is the same idea we already met with in the context of the ahimsā-injunctions for the Brāhmaṇa in general (above II 4 B).
Among the Dharmasūtras, the rules for the sannyāsin are given in great detail by Baudhāyana. According to him the vows of true renouncer are non-injury, truth, non-stealing, abstention from (637) sexual intercourse and abandoning (of all possessions). These vows are supplemented by five minor vows, viz. freedom from anger, obedience to the teacher, freedom from negligence, purity and cleanliness in eating.256
The ascetic shall not hurt living beings with the weapons (lit. sticks) speech, thought and act.257 He has to carry with him a piece of cloth for straining water for the purpose of purification.258
The rites with which a man enters the order of ascetics are given more fully than in the Manu-Smrti.259 They culminate in the promise of safety to all creatures.260 While Manu (6,40 v. above) says that the sannyāsin does not experience fear after death, Baudhāyana quotes the following verse: 'The silent ascetic who wanders about after having given fearlessness to all beings - for him no fear arises here on this earth from all the beings either.'261
254 M 6, 60 indriyāņām nirodhena rāgadveşakşayena ca, ahimsayā ca bhūtānām
amrtatvāya kalpate. Cf. 75. 255 M6,65 sūksmatām canvavekseta yogena paramātmanaḥ, deheșu ca samutpattim
uttamesu adhamesu ca. 256 Baudh 2, 10, 18, 2-3 athemāni vratāni bhavanti: ahimsā satyam astainyam
maithuņasya ca varjanam tyāga ity eva. pañcaivopavratāni bhavanti: akrodho
guruśusrūsāpramādaḥ saucam āhārasuddhis ceti. 257 Baudh 2, 6, 11, 23 vānmanahkarmadandair bhūtānām adrohi, danda has here
hardly the connotation 'means of punishment', as BÜHLER, The Sacred
Laws of the Aryas II (SBE XIV.1882), 260, translates. 258 Baudh 2, 6, 11, 24 pavitram bibhryāc chaucārtham. Cf. jalapavitram 2, 10, 17,
12.33.43. 259 Baudh 2, 10, 17 The details can be passed over here. The mantras
used for repositing the fires in the self are taken from TS 3, 4, 10,5; TB 2. 5. 8. 8. where they refer to the Agnyupasthāna; the sannyāsic rite is a reinterpretation of the older ritual, where the sacrificer makes the fire
mount himself so that he may not loose it. 260 Baudh 2, 10, 17, 29 abhayam sarvabhūtebhyo mattaḥ. 261 Baudh 2, 10, 17,30 abhayam sarvabhūtebhyo dattvā yaś carate munih, na tasya
sarvabhūtebhyo bhayam cāpīha jayate.
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The sannyāsin does not sacrifice anymore as the grhastha does since he has himself become identical with the sacrificial fires which consist in his vital breaths (prāņa). His sacrifice is an ātmayajña, a sacrifice in his self,262 and it consists of the food he has begged. His detachment from all sensual pleasure requires that he eats his food like a medicine, i.e. without tasting it, after having given portions to the creatures out of compassion.263
Vasiştha and Gautama teach that the ascetic has to be indifferent towards the creatures by avoiding injury as well as favour.264
Of great importance are Gautama's rules that the ascetic shall not take any limb of plants and trees if it is not (already) separated [638] and that he shall avoid the destruction of seeds.265 This means that he has to subsist on food devoid of life.
The idea that the sannyāsin must live only on food that is abandoned voluntarily and spontaneously is already present in the Isopanişad:
All this that moves on earth (= all living beings) is to be dwelled in by (= is the abode of) the Lord. Therefore you should nourish yourself with what is abandoned (voluntarily ceded to you); you should not covet anybody's property. 266
At the same time this verse is another instance for the conception that the Self (Ātman) - here identified with the Lord - dwells in all living beings. This conception is, moreover, again connected with the idea of ahimsā: “"Demoniac" are called those worlds, they are covered with blind darkness - to them those people go after death who are killers of souls (or: "a soul").' - 'Who however sees all beings in his own self, and his self in all beings – from him it (the one) does not strive to protect (hide) itself (= to him it reveals itself readily). 267
262 Baudh 2, 10, 18, 8-9. 263 Baudh 2, 10, 18, 10 bhūtebhyo dayāpūrvam samvibhajya sesam adbhiḥ
samsprśyauşadhavat prāśnīyāt. 264 Vas 10, 29 upekşakaḥ sarvabhūtşu himsānugrahaparihāreņa. Gaut 3, 24 samo
bhūteșu himsānugrahayoḥ. 265 Gaut 3, 20 nāviprayuktam oşadhivanaspatīnām angam upādadīta. 23 varjayed
bijavadham. 266 Isop 1 išāvāsyam idam sarvam yat kim ca jagatyam jagat, tena tyaktena
bhuñjīthā mā grdhaḥ kasya svid dhanam. The translations from Isop are those of P. THIEME, JAOS 85, 1965, 89 sqq.

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B. The vānaprastha, the hermit living in a hut in the forest,268 is also subjected to a number of restrictions which presuppose ahimsā though Manu does not use the term in this context. 'The hermit is to give up all food coming from the village269 and everything grown on ploughed land.270 He may eat what is either cooked with fire or ripened by time.'271 Or, following the rule of the Vaikhānasas, he shall always subsist on flowers, roots and fruits alone which are ripened by time and fallen spontaneously.272 The hermit shall be compassionate towards all living beings.273
Gautama teaches that the vānaprastha has to live on forest (639) produce alone which includes the meat of animals killed by beasts of prey.274
Baudhāyana divides the vānaprasthas into two categories -- those who cook and those who do not. Among those who cook are those who eat what is generated from semen, viz. the flesh of animals killed by tigers, wolves, falcons and other beasts of prey.275 The general rule for all Brahma-Vaikhānasas is as follows: 'He shall not injure gnats and flies, he shall endure cold and heat, staying in the forest, contented, enjoying bark and skin (as dress), and water (alone as drink)."276
Apastamba does not explicitly refer to ahimsā, but he possibly implies it when he says that the hermit shall enter water slowly and bathe without beating it.277 This reminds one of the rule for the Jaina monk who is not to beat water either.
267 Isop 3 asuryā nāma te lokā andhena tamasāvrtāḥ, tāms te pretyābhigacchanti
ye ke cătmahano janāḥ. 6 yas tu sarvāṇi bhūtāny ātmann evânupaśyati,
sarvabhūtesu cātmānam tato na vijigupsate. 268 I leave aside the hermit living without hut (M 6,25 sqq.), who is called
aranyanityah by Vas 10, 15, and who is a special type of sannyāsin whose
rules apply to him mutatis mutandis. 269 M6, 3 samtyajya grāmyam āhāram. 270 M 6, 16 phālakrstam. 271 M6, 17 agnipakvāśano vā syāl kalapakvabhug eva vā. 272 M 6, 21 puşpamūlaphalair vâpi kevalair vartayet sadā, kālapakvaiḥ svayam
śīrnair vaikhānasamate sthitaḥ. 273 M6, 8 saruabhiitnnukampalea. 274 Gaut 3, 31 baiska. 275 Baudh 3,3,6 retovasiktā nāma māmsam vyāghravskaśyenādibhir anyatamena
vā hatam. Cf. 2, 6, 11, 15 baiskam apy upayuñjīta. 276 Baudh 3, 3, 18-19 śāstraparigrahaḥ sarveşām brahmavaikhānasānām: na
druhyed damśamasakan himavāms tāpaso bhavet, vanapratişthaḥ samtuştaś cīracarmajalapriyaḥ, tāpasa is here to be taken as opposite of himavant, not
in the sense of performing austerities' as BÜHLER (SBE XIV, 293) has it. 277 Ap 2,9, 22, 13 śanair apo 'bhyaveyād anabhighnan.

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6. Among other vows the brahmacārin, the Vedic student has to keep that of ahimsā: He is to avoid honey, meat, perfumes, garlands, spices, women, everything turned sour and injury to animate beings. 278
Himsā is mentioned in the same context by Gautama: The student has to abstain from gambling, low service, taking something not offered to him, and injury.279
Though ahimsā is not referred to by the older Dharmasūtras in connection with the rules for the brahmacārin, it is presupposed in Pāraskara-Gșhyasūtra where the student is to fetch fire-wood from the woods without injuring trees.280 The condition that the firewood must not be cut off from living trees but must have fallen spontaneously is not mentioned elsewhere, but it can be assumed that the vow of ahimsā is implied by the initiation ceremony. On this occasion the teacher commits the pupil to all the gods and to all the beings so that he may not be hurt.281 These formulas [640] occur already in the Satapatha-Brāhmaṇa, where the sentence is added: "Thus his disciple does not suffer any harm. 282
It is true that in these passages the brahmacārin's practising ahimsā is not explicitly stated; they only say that the student himself is to be protected from injury. But from Pāraskara's rule it can be inferred that the student, in his turn, had to avoid injuring any animate being.
7. Ahimsā is one of the means to remove sins, one of the austerities (tapas) or penances to be performed by the penitent:
An oblation in the fire together with the 'great utterances' (bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ) must daily be made by (the penitent) himself. He must practise non-injury, truth, freedom from anger, and uprightness.283
Baudhayana, too, mentions ahimsā as one of the means of penance:
278 M 2,177 varjayen madhu māmsam ca gandham mālyam rasān striyaḥ, śuktāni
yani sarvāṇi prāņinām caiva himsanam. 279 Gaut 2, 17 dyūtam hīnasevām adattādānam hissām. Cf. M 2, 179. 280 PGS 2, 5, 9 ahimsann aranyät samidha āhrtya. 281 PGS 2, 2, 21 athainam bhūtebhyah paridadāti ... viśvebhyas tvā devebhyah
paridadāmi sarvebhyas tvā bhūtebhyah paridadāmi aristyā iti. 282 SB 11, 5, 4,344 tathā hāsya brahmacārī na kāñcanartim ārcchati. 283 M 11, 223 mahāvyāhịtibhir homaḥ kartavyaḥ svayam anvaham, ahimsām satyam
akrodham ārjavam ca samācaret.
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Non-injury, truth, non-stealing, ablutions in water in the morning, at noon, and in the evening, obedience towards the teacher, continence, sleeping on the ground, wearing one garment only, and fasting-that are the austerities (penances).284
This rule closely agrees with the vows of the sannyāsin (v. above II 5A), and Baudhāyana and Manu obviously presuppose that following some of the sannyāsin's vows for a limited time can free from minor sins. Entering the order of sannyāsa after going through the other three āśramas is, according to Manu, the means to remove all sins. 285
Āpastamba inserts before the chapter on penances a passage on the knowledge of the atman, and the means by which this knowledge is attained, imply ahimsā, though the term is not used:
He shall attend to the methods of concentration which lead to the Self, are accompanied by the abandoning (of passions) and instrumental in not bringing (the passions) forth (again). There is found nothing higher than the attainment of the Self. Therefore we shall quote as examples verses which refer to the attainment of the Self: 'All animate beings are the castle of the (Self), who is lying in concealment, who is not killed, who is spotless; those who attend to the immovable (Self) who lives in a movable dwelling (become) immortal.' [641] ‘Despising all what is called an object (of the senses) in this world, the wise man shall attend to that one who is lying in concealment.'286 'The wise one who sees all beings in the Self, who reflecting (upon this) does not become perplexed, and who sees the Self everywhere, that Brahman, in truth, shines in heaven ... From him (the Self), the highest, who divides himself, spring all the bodies; he is the root, permanent, eternal.'287 'But, the extinction
284 Baudh 3, 10, 13 ahimsā satyam astainyam savanesūdakopasparśanam gurusu
srūsā brahmacaryam adhahsayanam ekavastratānāšaka iti tapāmsi. Cf. also the śloka on purification 1,5,8,2 (the soul is purified by ahimsā) which recurs
in the chapter on ascetic householders 3, 2, 27 (v. above II 4 C). 285 Cf. M 6,85.96. 286 Āp 1, 8, 22, 1 adhyātmikān yogān anutişthen nyāsasamhitān anaiścărikān.
2 ātmalābhān na param vidyate. 3 tatrātmalābhīyāñ cchlokan udāharisyāmah. 4 pūḥ prāņinaḥ sarva eva guhāśayasyāhanyamānasya, vikalmaşasyācalam calaniketam ye 'nutişthanti te 'mrtāḥ.5 yad idam id ihed iha loke visayam ucyate,
vidhūya kavir etad anutişthed guhāśayam. 287 Ap 1,8, 23,1 ātman paśyan sarvabhūtani na muhyec cintayan kavih, ātmānam
caiva sarvatra pasyet sa vai brahmā nākaprsthe virajati. 2... paramesthi vibhājah, tasmāt kāyāh prabhavanti sarve sa mālam śāśvatikaḥ sa nityah.
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of the faults in this life has its root in concentration. Having removed the faults which tend to burn (= injure) the animate beings, a wise man goes to (final) peace.
Now we shall exemplify the faults which tend to burn the animate beings: Anger, delight, wrath, greed, perplexity, perfidy, deceit (or: injury), lying, gluttony, slander, envy, lust and rage, disinterest in the Self, non-concentration: the extinction of these (faults) has its root in concentration.
Freedom from anger, from delight, from wrath, from greed, from perplexity, from perfidy, from deceit (or injury), speaking the truth, moderate eating, freedom from slander, from envy, sharing with others, abandoning (all possessions), uprightness, affability, tranquillity, self-control, freedom from conflict with all the animate beings, concentration, honourable conduct, freedom from malice, contentedness - these (virtues) have been agreed upon for all the āśramas; attending to them according to the rules one becomes possessed of that one who is going everywhere (=one becomes united with the universal Self). 288
The description of the universal Self closely corresponds to that given in the Isopanişad quoted above (II 5 A). The passages cited are presumably taken from an Upanişad, which is not preserved (642). This Upanişad was related to or even partly dependent on the Īśopanisad.289
We have seen above (II 4 B), that Āpastamba refers to this section in the context of the duties of the snātaka. In general the attainment of the ātman is a prerogative of the sannyāsin,290 but it is the aim of every Brāhmaṇa whose whole conduct is guided by sannyāsic ideals. Āpastamba has put the passage on the knowledge of the ātman at the head of the chapter on penances, obviously because he
288 Ap 1,8, 23, 3 dosāņām tu nirghāto yogamūla iha jīvite, nirhrtya bhūtadāhīyān
kşemam gacchati panditaḥ. 4 atha bhūtadāhīyān doşan udāharişyāmaḥ. 5 krodho harso roso lobho moho dambho droho mặşodyam atyāśaparīvādāv asīyā kāmamanyū anātmyam ayogas teşam yogamūlo nirghātaḥ. 6 akrodho 'harşo‘roso ‘lobho 'moho 'dambho 'drohaḥ satyavacanam anatyāso 'paiśunam anāsūyā samvibhāgas tyāga ārjavam mārdavam samo damaḥ sarvabhūtair avirodho yoga āryam änțsamsam tuştir iti sarvāsramāņām samayapadāni täny anutişthan
vidhinä särvagāmi bhavati. 289 Cf. Ap. 1,8, 23, 1 ātman paśyan sarvabhūtāni na muhyet with Isop 7: yasmint
sarvāni bhūtäny ätmaivābhūd vijānatah, tatra ko mohah kah soka ekatvam anupaśyataḥ. Cf. also Yājñavalkya's na vā are 'ham mohaḥ bravīmi BĀU 2,
4, 13. 4,5, 14. 290 Cf. Āp 2, 9, 21, 13 sqq.
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was of the firm conviction that the sannyāsin-like conduct is the highest penance and safeguards the Brāhmaṇa against committing sins and crimes.
III
From a casual survey of the material collected in the preceding paragraphs it might appear that the idea of ahimsā originated among the world-renouncers, was gradually adopted by the Brāhmaṇas and was finally considered to be a rule for the whole society whose values were determined by the precedent of the Brāhmaṇas.
In the Dharmasūtras as well as in the Manu-Smrti the prohibition of injuring animate beings is mainly based on the ātman-theory. This theory which is first connected with the ahimsā-idea in the Isopanişad, goes – in the fully developed form we are concerned with - back to Yājñavalkya. In the Brhadāranyaka-Upanişad he says of the man who has desires: Having obtained the end of his action, whatever he does in this world, he comes again from that world to this world for (further) action. 291 This means that acts, be they good or bad, lead to a new birth in this world. The man however who has no desires anymore (akāma) except that for the Self (ātmakāma) becomes united with the Brahman (brahmāpyeti) and is not reborn.
This (ātman = Brahman) the Brāhmaṇas wish to know by recitation of the Veda, by sacrifice, by liberality, by austerities, by fasting. Knowing this (ātman) one becomes a silent ascetic. Seeking him as their world the wandering ascetics wander forth. ... These two (thoughts) do not overcome him: 'Therefore I did something bad' and 'therefore I did something good' - he overcomes them both; both what he has [643] done and what he has not done do not burn him.... Therefore one who knows thus - after becoming appeased, self-controlled, enduring, indifferent, concentrated - sees the Self in (his) self, sees the Self as everything ... becomes a Brāhmaṇa (in the real sense, viz. a knower
291 BĀU 4,4,6 prāpyāntam karmanas tasya yat kim ceha karoty ayam, tasmāt lokāt
punar aity asmai lokäya karmane.
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of Brahman = ātman) who has no doubt (anymore): He is one whose world is Brahman.292
Yājñavalkya does not mention ahimsā as one of the virtues of the ascetic, but the knowledge of the Self is inseparably connected with renunciation. Renunciation is for him the result of the knowledge that every deed done in this world bears its fruits in the next world and in future births. This fate can be overcome only by realizing the unity of all beings in the universal Self. It would be easily conceivable that the idea of ahimsā sprang from the conception that the same Self which dwells in oneself also dwells in all the other beings and that by injuring other beings one would injure oneself. Nevertheless this conclusion would be a fallacy since it does not explain the significance of ahimsa in the animistic and pluralistic religion of the Jainas. The Jainas however know a karman-doctrine which is similar to that of Yājñavalkya, and so do the Buddhists who do not recognize a universal Self either.
The Manu-Smrti adduces besides the ātman-theory another motivation for the ahimsā-doctrine - the popular belief that the eater of the meat of an animal will be eaten by this animal in the next world (5,33.55). This conception could easily be connected with the karmandoctrine. But it is older than this theory, and we must consider the attitude taken to it by the theoreticians of the Vedic ritual.
IV
In the sāňkhāyana-Brāhmaṇa the triştubh meter used in the morninglitany of the Soma-sacrifice is identified with force (bala) and strength (vīrya), the bịhatī and uşņih with large and small cattle, respectively. By using the triştubh before and after, the bịhatī and usnih cattle is encircled by strength and force:
In the middle are cattle connected with the bịhatī and the uşņih; having encircled cattle from both sides with force and
292 BAU 4, 4, 22-23 ... tam etam vedanuvacanena brāhmaṇā vividişanti yajñena
danena tapasānāśakenaitam eva viditvā munir bhavati, etam eva pravrajino lokam icchantah pravrājanti ... etam u haivaite na tarata ity ataḥ pāpam akaravam ity ataḥ kalyanam akaravam ity ubhe u haivaişa ete tarati nainam krtākļte tapataḥ ... tasmād evamvic chānto dānta uparatas titikṣuḥ samāhito bhūtvātmany evātmānam paśyati sarvam ātmānam paśyati ... avicikitso brāhmaṇo bhavaty esa brahmalokah. Cf. also BĀU 3, 4 and 5.
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strength, he (the hots) puts (cattle) into the sacrificer. Thus cattle do not run away 1644) from the sacrificer. lust as men eat cattle in this world, partake of them, so cattle eat men in yonder world, partake of them. He (the sacrificer) seizes them in this world through the morning-litany; they, seized in this world, do not eat him in yonder world, do not partake of him; just as he eats them in this world, partakes of them, so he eats them in yonder world, partakes of them.293
Being eaten in yonder world is considered as common fate. But one can evade this fate by magical means, in this case by the morninglitany of the Soma-sacrifice. Generally the magical power consists in the knowledge of an equivalence or correspondence between the object and the means. The correspondence Sankhāyana establishes refers to the 'seizing' of cattle and has no immediate connection with the eating of cattle, but it is implied that 'seizing' means winning power over cattle in this and the next world.
Another example is furnished by the Satapatha-Brāhmaṇa:
From this sacrifice, in truth, the man (= the sacrificer) is born. What food a man consumes in this world, that consumes him, in return, in yonder world. This sacrifice is, in truth, performed as one of fermenting (= intoxicating) drink, and fermenting drink is not to be consumed by a Brāhmaṇa. He is born from what is not to be consumed, and the food does not, in return, consume him in yonder world. Therefore the Sautrāmaņī is the sacrifice of a Brāhmaṇa.294
Here the author argues that being born from something unconsumable guarantees that the sacrificer cannot be consumed either in yonder world.
293 SänkhB 11, 3 madhye bárhatās causnīhāś ca paśavo balenaiva tad vīryeno
bhayataḥ paśūn parigrhya yajamāne dadhāti tathā ha yajamānāt pašavo 'nutkrāmukā bhavanti tad yathā ha vā asmiml loke manusyah paśūn aśnanti yathaibhir bhuñjata evam evāmuşmiņ1 loke paśavo manusyān aśnanty evam ebhir bhuñjate sa enan iha prataranuvākenavarunddhe tam ihāvaruddha amusmiml loke nāśnanti nainena pratibhuñjate yathaivainan asmim loke 'snāti
yathaibhir bhunkta evam evainan amuşmil loke 'śnāty evam ebhir bhunkte. 294 SB 12,9,1, 1 etasmäd vai yajñāt puruṣo jāyate, sa yad dha vă asmirl loke puruşo
'nnam atti tad enam amuşmil loke pratyatti sa vă esa parisruto yajñas tāyate 'nädyā vai brāhmaṇena parisrut sa etasmād anadyāj jayate tam hāmuşmil loke 'nnam na pratyatti tasmad eșa brāhmaṇayajña eva yat sautrāmanī.
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The fullest account of this conception is found in the story of Bhrgu's visit to yonder world.295 Bhrgu considered himself superior in knowledge to his father Varuņa. To teach him a lesson, Varuņa sends him to yonder world. There Bhșgu sees: (1) a man cutting a man apiece; (2) a man eating a man who is crying aloud; and (3) a man eating a man who is silent. Asking for the reason [645] of these horrible happenings, Bhrgu is told to ask his father. Varuņa gives him the following explanations: The first man is a tree which was cut in this world and is now doing the same to the wood-cutter, the remedy (nişkyti JB, prāyaścitta ŚB) for this is to put fire-wood on the fire in the daily Agnihotra, thus one evades being cut by trees in yonder world. The second man is an animal which was slaughtered and eaten and is now eating the eater; the remedy is the offering of milk in the Agnihotra - milk being an equivalent of the cow and of cattle in general - (SB) or offering the first offering with loud recitation (JB). The third man is a plant which was eaten and is now eating the eater; the remedy is the illumination of the Agnihotra milk with a straw in order to see in the dark of the early morning or late evening and to be able to prevent the milk from boiling over - (SB) or to offer the last offering with silent recitation (JB).
H. Lommel296 has shown that the legend is based on the conception of yonder world as an inverted world where everything of this world is turned into its opposite. He has further drawn the convincing conclusion that originally this conception has nothing to do with ethical ideas and that the fate man undergoes in yonder world is not to be considered as a punishment. The idea of the inverted world is a simple and naive conception of the inevitable course of the world, for which Lommel has adduced a great number of ethnological and folkloristic parallels.
Viewed from this standpoint, the remedies given in the Brāhmaṇas appear to be arbitrary and unsatisfactory. But they are in perfect consonance with the magical theory of the Vedic ritualists. That man suffers in the next world the same fate he has caused to his victims in this world was probably common belief. In the ritual texts it is only rarely mentioned presumably because it was of little consequence for the ritualist who, by establishing symbolical equivalences for all the ritual acts, was able to secure any end for the sacrificer in this and the next world.
295 ŚB 11, 6, 1. JB 1, 42–44. I confine myself to giving a short description of
the points essential for my purpose. 296 Paideuma 4, 1950, 93–109.
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The ritualists were however deeply concerned with the killing and injuring of animate beings which occurs in the sacrifice itself. It appears from the Bhrgu-legend that they were animists who treated trees, plants and the elements (water is mentioned in the legend)
na par with men and animals. Killing and hurting creatures had undesirable consequences which must be eliminated. [646]
The most general theory for eliminating the killing in the sacrifice is the conception that the victim or the offering is reborn from the fire in which it is offered:
They kill, in truth, this sacrifice when they perform it; and when they press out the King (Soma), then they kill him; and when they make an animal consent and cut it up, then they kill it; by pestle and mortar and by the two millstones they kill the haviryajña. After having killed the sacrifice he (the adhvaryu) pours it which has become seed into the fire as its womb, for the womb of the sacrifice is, in truth, the fire; from that (the fire) it (the sacrifice) is reborn.297
In general the words 'to kill' and 'to die' are not used. For leading the animal up for sacrifice and killing it â labhate'"he takes hold of" is substituted, for killing alone sam jñapayati "he makes consent"' 298 The slaughterer is called samitr 'appeaser'.299 And where the killing and dying is explicitly stated - as in the passage just cited, it is done only in order to nullify or to deny it on the spot. The idea that the animal does not die, but goes to the gods whose herd it joins, is attested already in the Ķgveda.300 And a Brāhmaṇa says: "Not to
297 SB 11, 1, 2, 1-2 ghnanti vā etad yajñam, yad enam tanvate yan nv eva rājānam
abhişunvanti tat tam ghnanti yat paśum samjñapayanti viśāsati tat tam ghnanty ulūkhalamusalābhyām drsadupalābhyam haviryajñam ghnanti. tam hatvā yajñam, agnāv eva yonau reto bhūtam siñcaty agnir vai yonir yajñasya sa tataḥ
prajāyate. 298 Cf. H. OERTEL, 'Euphemismen in der vedischen Prosa', Sitzungsber. d.
Bayer. Akad. d. Wiss. Phil.-hist. Abt. 1942. 8,6 sqq. Add ā sthāpayati 'to make
stop' and gamayati 'to make go'. 299 šamāyati in the connotation 'to kill' is not used for the killing of the victim
in the Brāhrnaņa-texts: cf. OERTEL, loc. cit., 8 sq.; it occurs in this context
first in Vaitāna Sūtra 10, 18. 300 RV 1, 162, 21.
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death, in truth, do they lead (the animal) which they lead to the sacrifice.'301
But apart from these more general conceptions the whole ritual is pervaded by acts meant for immediately eliminating any killing and injury - the acts of appeasing (śānti).302 They do not refer only to the offerings but to any kind of injury committed in the course of the sacrifice. These rites are of special interest for the problem under discussion since in their and similar contexts we meet with the earliest occurrences of the word ahimsā (attested only in the final dative ahimsāyai). A few examples will suffice to illustrate the working of these rites.
[647]
When the tree that is to serve as the sacrificial post in the animalsacrifice is felled, precautionary measures are taken to prevent it from being injured:
'O plant, protect it, he (the adhvaryu) says in order to protect it. 'O axe, do not injure it' - with these words he puts this (blade of darbha 303 - grass) between it (the tree) and the thunderbolt - the axe is, in truth, a thunderbolt - so that there be no injury.304
In a parallel text śāntyai is given in place of ahimsāyai. 305 Here the injury done to the tree is diverted to the blade of grass.
The tree itself, when falling down, is liable to injure the worlds:
The sacrificial post is, in truth, a thunderbolt; these worlds are afraid of it when it is being hurled down since being hurled down unappeased it is capable of injuring these worlds. When he says: 'With your top do not injure the sky, with your middle (do not injure) the intermediate world, become united with the earth, go to radiance', he thus
301 $B 3, 8, 1, 10 na va etam mrtyave nayanti yam yajñaya nayanti. 302 The material has been collected and discussed in detail by D. J. HOENS,
Santi I (Thesis Utrecht 1951). 303 Read: kusa- (WB). 304 MS 3,9, 3 osadhe trāyasvainam, ity aha trātyā eva svadhite mainam himsīr iti
vajro vai svadhitir vajrad vāvāsmā etad antardadhāty ahimsāyai. 305 TS 6,3,3, 2.

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appeases it; thus appeased, it is hurled down so that it does not do injury to these worlds.306
When the victim has been killed by suffocation, the apertures of its body are sprinkled with water:
Burning pain hits the vital breaths of the animal being killed. When he says: 'Do not injure its voice, do not injure its breath', he thus frees its vital breaths by water from burning pain. With the words: 'Whatever of you is wounded, whatever of you is stopped (= killed), of that become purified, beautify yourself for the gods', he has made unwounded whatever they have wounded by making it go (= by killing it), that he appeases.307
The rest of the water used for this purpose is poured on the earth. Since the burning pain has been transferred from the vital breaths of the animal to the water, the pain now enters the earth: 'When he says: 'Hail to the waters', he thus appeases (them). They thus hit this (earth) appeased so that they do not do injury (to the earth)."308
[648] When the victim is cut open, the same procedure is followed as in the case of felling the tree: The knife is not to injure the animal. 309
After the offering of the omentum the sacrificer, his wife, and the priests have to cleanse themselves with water: 'That, in truth, they wound what they make consent, what they cut up. Water is (a means of) appeasing, they appease it by water as (a means of) appeasing, they put it together (= heal it) by water.'310
306 MS 3,9,3 vajro vai yūpas tasmad vā ime lokā nīryamāņād bibhyatīśvaro hy eso
'śānto nīryamāņa imārl lokān himsitor yad aha divam agreņa mā himsīr antarikşam madhyena prthivyāḥ sambhava bhrājam gaccheti samayaty eva santa
eva nīryata eşām, lokānām ahimsāyai. 307 MS 3, 10, 1 paśor vai māryamāṇasya prāņāñ śug rcchati yad āha vācam asya
mā himsīh prānam asya mā himsir ity adbhir vāvāsyaitat prāņāñ suco muñcati yat te krūram yad ästhitam tad etena śundhasva devebhyaḥ śumbahasveti yad
evāsya gamayantaḥ krūram akrams tad akrūram akas tac samayati. 308 MS 3, 10, 1 yad aha sam adbhya iti samayaty eva śāntā evemām rcchanty
ahimsāyai. 309 MS ibid. 310 ŚB 3, 8, 2, 30 krūrī vā etat kurvanti yat samjñāpayanti yad visāsati śāntir āpas
tad adbhiḥ śāntyä samayante tad adbhiḥ samdadhate.
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Water is the most common means of appeasing (śānti) or healing (bhesaja, niskrti), and the same or similar formulations are used in other contexts too, for example, when the grain for the sacrificial cakes is threshed and ground and thereby injured or killed,311 and when the earth is dug up for the construction of the vedi312 or for the erection of the sacrificial post. 313
Another way of avoiding injury is found in the symbolical identifications. To prevent the fire-pan from being injured by the fire, the adhvaryu
fumigates it with horse-dung so that it is not injured, for the horse, in truth, belongs to Prajāpati, (and) Agni is Prajāpati, (and) oneself does not, in truth, injure oneself. That (he does) with dung since that is what was eaten (and therefore) useless. Thus he does not injure the horse nor the other animals. 314
A pit is dug for depositing the fire-pan while a yajus is recited for which the following motivation is given:
Prajapati thought: 'He who will dig her (the earth) up first, will suffer harm.' He saw this yajus: 'Aditi ... shall dig you in the lap of the earth, o pit'; Aditi ... is, in truth, this (earth); with her, in truth, he dug that (pit) in her so as to do no injury (to her), for oneself does not injure oneself.315
From the last passage it appears that the precautionary measure is taken in order to prevent the being injured from taking revenge on the sacrificer. In a number of instances ahimsāyai refers to the prevention of injury to the sacrificer, his progeny and cattle. [649] Preventing or healing every possible injury to any being is
311 ŚB 1, 2, 2, 11.14. 312 MS 3, 2, 3. 313 TS 6, 3, 4, 1. KS 26,5. 314 SB 6,5, 3, 9 aśvasakair dhūpayati, prājāpatyo vā aśvaḥ prajāpatir agnir na vā
ātmātmānam hinasty ahimsāyai tad vai saknaiva tad dhi jagdham yātayāma tatho
ha naivāśvam hinasti netarān paśūn. 315 MS 3, 1,8 prajāpatir amanyata: yo va asyā agre vikhanisyaty artim, sa ārisyatīti.
sa etad yajur apaśyad: aditis tvā... prthivyāḥ sadhasthe ... khanatv avațetīyam vā aditis ... anayā vai sa tad asyām akhanad ahimsāyai na hi svaḥ svam hinasti.
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one of the principles of the ritualistic theory of the Brāhmaṇas. The sacrificer, being instrumental - mostly through the agency of his priests - in every ritual act and therefore responsible, must be safeguarded against any conceivable retaliation.
One might even speak of a ritual ahimsā-theory. Though ahiņsā is not used as a terminus technicus in the Brāhmaṇa-texts, the verb hims is the most general expression for 'to injure'.
Occasionally ahimsāyai is used in more general contexts without any reference to the injury done by the sacrificer in the ritual. In a passage relating to the verses addressed to Pūşan in the Agnyupasthāna, 'the worship of the fires', which follows the Agnihotra, we read:
“Pūşan, the Lord of the paths, protect me', (this is equivalent to) this (earth); “Pūşan, the lord of cattle, protect me', (this is equivalent to) the intermediate world; Pūşan, the overlord, protect me', (this is equivalent to) yonder (world): Thus he approached these worlds, he commits himself to these worlds so as not to be injured.316
I have selected this passage since its wording closely agrees with the formula used by the teacher when he commits the pupil to all the gods and all the beings 'for not being hurť (aristyai, v. above II 6).317 Considering the fact that in a Gșhyasūtra the student is to avoid injuring trees, it was suggested above that the student, who was to be protected from getting hurt by the beings, had in his turn to avoid hurting the beings. That this is not explicitly stated in the Satapatha-Brāhmaṇa, is mere coincidence. It was certainly presupposed since it is a logical consequence of the ritual ahimsātheory: The student who did not yet sacrifice and did not yet know how to eliminate by magical means the evil consequences of injuring animate beings had to practise ahimsā.
316 MS 1, 5, 1 I pūṣā mā pathipāḥ pātv itīyam eva pūşā mā paśupāḥ pātv ity
antarikşam eva pūķā mādhipah pātu ity asā eveman eva lokān upăsarad ebhyo lokebhyo ātmānam paridhatte 'himsāyai. paridhatte stands for paridatte - a
confusion which already occurs in the Rgveda. 317 For aristyai used in similar contexts as ahimsāyai cf. ŚB 13, 4, 15. PB 8,5,
16. 16, 10, 10.
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VI
The animistic world-conception of the Vedic ritualists resembles that of the Jainas, and the ahimsā-rules for the Jaina monk apply to the same objects to which the ritual ahimsā-theory is applied. The conclusion suggests itself that the ritual ahimsā-theory is the ultimate source of the later renunciatory ahimsā-[650]doctrine. 318 It is the Vedic ritual which makes us understand the magico-ritualistic background of the ahimsa-movement. But it is still a far cry from the theory of the ritualists who believed in being able to compensate for every injury by magical means to that of the renouncer who did not share this belief. The ahimsa-doctrine of the renouncer is, in fact, a complete reversal of the ritual theory. Since the reform-religions of the Jina and the Buddha cannot have initiated this development, it is necessary to look for other factors which could have brought it about.
Since its earliest occurrence the ahimsa-doctrine is connected with the belief in metempsychosis. The conception of transmigration was gradually developed in the time of the Brāhmaṇa texts. There we meet with the problem of recurring death (punarmệtyu):319 One began to wonder if the life in yonder world was permanent or if it ended with a new death which resulted in a rebirth in this world. First one tried to solve this problem with the usual magical means; by specific sacrifices it was possible to escape punarmstyu. But once doubts were raised they persisted and led to the further question if the effect of ritual acts was permanent and final or if the fruits of these acts could be used up. This idea has certainly contributed to the development of the karman-doctrine which applied the same argument not only to ritual acts, but to every action. The future births
318 This was first hinted at by me in Ztschr. f. vgl. Sprachf. 78, 1963,46 n. 1. -
M. BLOOMFIELD, The New World. A Quarterly Review of Religion, Ethics and Theology 1, 1892, 262 (cf. ZDMG 48, 1894,556 n. 3) connected the formula svadhite mainam himsth with the idea of ahimsā. He was, however, biased by the opinion that Buddhist ahimsā was identical with vegetarianism
and thus stopped short of the correct solution of the problem. 319 Cf. H. OLDENBERG, Die Lehre der Upanishaden (Göttingen 1915), 28 sqq.
With regard to the development of the transmigration doctrine I agree in principle with E. FRAUWALLNER, Geschichte der indischen Philosophie I (Salzburg 1953), 50 sq. 65 sq. It is not possible to go into details here, but it can be maintained that the attempts to derive the idea of metemphychosis from pre-Aryan sources neglect the evidence available in the ritual texts.
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depend on the good and bad actions done in this life. Since the fruits of good deeds are being used up and since even sacrifices, by which one attains a blissfull existence in heaven, are only of temporary effect, the conclusion is finally drawn that solely by renouncing all actions, be they good or bad, release from transmigration is possible. Among the actions which produce the most undesirable consequences, the injury done to living beings, quite naturally, stood first, and ahimsā became one of the foremost duties of the renouncer.
In the Dharmasūtras the life of a man is divided into four successive stages [651]: those of the student, the householder, the hermit in the forest, and the wandering ascetic or renouncer. It has often been suggested that this āśrama-system was an attempt of the orthodox Brāhmanas to assimilate and to bring under their control ascetic movements which originated outside their fold and threatened to undermine the social order.320 There are, however, as pointed out by J.C. Heesterman,321 in the Vedic ritual some significant details to be found which can be regarded as precursors of the later vānaprastha and pārivrājaka. At the abhijit and visvajit sacrifices the sacrificer gives all his possessions as dakşiņās, retires with his wife to the forest to live on roots and fruits, then procedes to various people to be entertained as a guest in order to regain what he has spent, and finally returns home. In the sarvamedha the sacrificer spends all he has conquered in dakşiņās, resumes the sacred fires in himself, goes to the forest and does not return anymore. The brahmacārin corresponds to the dīkṣita whose observances and dress are similar. Thus the three modes outside the world correspond, according to Heesterman, to the stages through which the sacrificer has to pass.
The similarity between brahmacārin and sannyāsin is, I think, equally significant.322 The student and the renouncer are celibates, live on begged food, carry a staff, recite the Veda,323 do not perform
320 On the āśrama-system cf. M. WINTERNITZ, Festgabe H. Jacobi (Bonn 1926),
215-227. F. WEINRICH, Arch. f. Religionswiss. 27, 1929, 77–92. B. LIEBICH, Die vier indischen asramas (Breslau 1936). On asceticism cf. L. SKURZAK, 'Etudes sur l'origine de l'ascétisme indien', Travaux de la Société des Sciences et des Lettres de Wroclaw. A 15. 1948, who tries to prove the pre-Aryan
origin of the wandering ascetics. 321 Wiener Ztschr. f. d. Kunde Süd- und Ostasiens 8, 1964, 24 sqq. 322 The parallelism has been recognized since long ago. Cf. e.g. the survey
by S.B. DEO, llistory of Jain Monachism (Poona 1956), 40 sqq. 323 The recitation of the Veda is compulsory for the sannyāsin: Ap 2, 9, 21,
10. Baudh 2, 10, 18, 24. Vas 10,4-5. M 6,83.
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sacrifices and practise ahimsā. Probably the vows of the sannyasin were partly modelled after those of the brahmacārin. It is striking that Baudhāyana mentions obedience towards the teacher among the duties of the ascetic (v. above II 5 A). Attention must also be drawn to the correspondence between the initiation of the student and the rites with which the ascetic renounces the world: The teacher commits the student to the beings so that they do not hurt him (v. above II 6); the renouncer gives the promise of fearlessness to the beings. Both involve reciprocity. The student is not to hurt the beings, and the renouncer will not experience fear. It was suggested above (V end) that the student had, originally, to avoid injuring beings because he did not yet know how to compensate for injuries. The sannyāsin avoids injury for the [652] opposite reason. He does not apply magical means anymore since he knows that their effect is not permanent. Both modes of life are preparatory stages; their main aim is the acquisition of knowledge. The student strives for the knowledge of the Veda, the renouncer for the knowledge of the ātman. In the course of development both stages could even coalesce. It is possible to remain a lifelong student in the teacher's house,324 and according to Manu this permanent student will be united with Brahman and will not be reborn, i.e. he attains the same aim as the renouncer.
Sannyāsa can thus be regarded as a return to brahmacarya. In the Satapatha-Brāhmaṇa the brahmacārin's life is equated to a long sacrificial session (sattra).325 The student does not perform sacrifices, but his duties are identified with the ritual acts. The sannyāsin is an ātmayājin, who sacrifices, while taking his food, in his self, the sacred fires being identified with his vital breaths (v. above II 5 A). The whole ritual is resumed in and absorbed by the individual. This process of individualization and interiorization of the sacrifice is already clearly discernible in the development of the ritual theory itself.326 The meta-ritualism - to use a term coined by L. Renou327 - of the Upanișads works with the same means as the older ritualism, viz. the knowledge of equivalences. While the ritual makes the sacrificer dependent not only on other men, the officiants, but also on other beings, the victim, offerings, etc., and thus liable to retribution, the meta-ritual eliminates all these factors.
324 Āp 2, 9, 21, 6. Vas 7,4-6. Gaut 3,4-9. M 2,242–244. 247,249 325 SB 11, 3, 3, 2. 326 Cf. HEESTERMAN, loc. cit., 14 sqq. 22 sq. 327 RENOU-FILLIOZAT, L'Inde classique I (Paris 1947), S 578.
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The step from external to internal sacrifice certainly preceded the emergence of absolute renunciation. An example for the internal sacrifice is the daily self-study of the Veda (svādhyāya), which is a great sacrificial session (mahāsattra) called the sacrifice to the brahman, the totality of Vedic knowledge and as such the universal principle.328 He who attends to the daily self-study of the Veda and knows the equivalences with the ritual acts of the sattra ‘is, in truth, freed from recurring death, goes to the union with (lit.: to the state of having the self of) brahman'. 329 By depending solely on himself the sacrificer is able to overcome recurring death.
Against the same background must be judged the teaching of Ghora Angirasa in the Chāndogya-Upanişad in which the word [653] ahimsā occurs for the first time in the sense of the new doctrine. Ghora equates the whole life of a man to the Soma-sacrifice, and he assigns to pleasures and progeneration their proper place without depreciating them. But he has a kind of moral code: the dakșiņās, the gifts to the priests, are identified with austerity, giving (alms), uprightness, non-injury and speaking the truth.330 Since also the other identifications are based on similarities, there is no reason to suppose that this particular one is arbitrary. The similarity between giving alms and dakşiņā is obvious. But what have the other virtues in common with the gift? I think that Ghora interpreted them as varieties of self-denial. By austerity one becomes emasciated, gives of one's own substance; thus the offerings of the dīkṣita who is practising tapas consist in that which is growing less of his body.331 Speaking the truth is not a matter of course: one speaks lies in anger, in drunkenness, and even while dreaming 332 Therefore the Vedic sacrificer has to enter on the vow of truth since men speak untruth, the gods truth, and in the sacrifice a man goes from the world of men to the world of the gods.333 Continuously speaking the truth is thus a severe kind of self-restraint. Ahimsā is not the rule in daily life either; by practising it one saves the life of creatures and denies oneself the natural tendency to live on the other beings. According to the ritual ahimsā-theory the creature injured or killed is healed
328 ŚB 11, 5, 6, 3-9. (cf. 7,3-9). 329 SB 11, 5, 6, 9 ati ha vai mucyate gacchati brahmanaḥ sātmatām. 330 ChU 3, 17, 4 atha yat tapo dānam ārjavam ahimsā satyavacanam iti tā asya
dakşiņāh. 331 MS 3, 6, 6. 332 Cf. RV 7, 86, 6. 333 Cf. ŚB 1,1,1.
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and restored to life by magical means. By interiorizing the sacrifice in order to become independent from the other beings such external acts are excluded, and this leads to the logical conclusion that injury to living beings had to be avoided altogether.
It is not possible to determine the exact place of Ghora's teaching in the development of Upanișadic thought. From his words it seems to appear that he did not yet know the karman-doctrine and the ātman-theory. He seems to have believed in the rebirth of the father in the son,334 and at the same time in a personal release after death which was the result of the dying man's last wish.335
[654] Ghora imagined the state of release to be in the realm of the light of the primeval seed (pratnasya retaso jyotis) which is kindled beyond the sky and the sun; the primeval seed is truth.336 We do not know if he believed in the survival of the individual soul in after-life or its complete mergence in the light of truth. If the first is the case, he would approximately belong to the period which preceded that of the precursors of the Jina who taught that the released souls rise to the summit of the cosmos and stay there for ever.
Ghora did not yet teach complete renunciation as Yājñavalkya did whose doctrine has become the basis of the renunciatory ideology prevalent among the Brāhmaṇas (v. above III). The austerities Ghora
334 ChU3, 17,5... sosyaty asosteti punarutpädanam evāsya'"He will press Soma
(= his wife will bear); he has pressed Soma (= his wife has born)" - that is his rebirth.' I am, however, not certain if this is the correct interpretation. - J. NARTEN, Die sigmatischen Aoriste im Veda (Wiesbaden, 1964), 268, doubts the ambiguous use of sosyaty asosta. - Senart, Ganganath Jha and
Swami Swāhānanda translate his mother has born' (WB). 335 ChU 3, 17, 6 ... apipāsa eva sa babhūva so'ntavelāyām etat trayam
pratipadyetākṣitam asi acyutam asi prāṇasaņšitam asīti 'A man has become really without thirst (desire); he shall, in the hour of death, take refuge to this triad: "You are imperishable, you are immovable, you are the peak of breath (=life)."'On the decisive importance of the last wish for a man's future fate, a notion which was combined with the karman-doctrine by
the Buddhists, cf. F. EDGERTON, Ann. Bhandarkar Or. Inst. 8, 1927, 219–249. 336 Ghora's idea is derived from RV 8,6,30 and 1,50, 10 (both originally referring
to the rising of the sun) which are quoted in the Upanişad. For pratnasya retas = sta cf. H. LÜDERS, Varuna (Göttingen 1951–59), 620 sq., whose decisive argument is the verse BAU 5, 15, 1 = Išop 15 hiranmayena pätrena satyasyāpihitam mukham The face of truth is covered by a golden bowl (=the
sun).' This verse, too, occurs in the context of a dying man's prayer. 337 Cf. e.g. the legend of Agastya and Lopamudrā (RV 1, 179) and the frog
hymn (7, 103).
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practised were probably of a temporary nature, just as the austerities already practised by the Vedic poets in order to attain higher knowledge.337 At the close of his life he became without thirst (apipāsa: v. p. 653, n. 6), i.e. had renounced all desires and, in the hour of death, took refuge to the truth he had recognized in order not to be reborn. It would seem that his attitude agreed, in essence, with that of the later āśrama-system in which renunciation is the last stage of life. There is, however, one difference: Ghora regarded the whole life as an internal sacrifice, did apparently not perform real sacrifices, while the later doctrine restricted the internal sacrifice to the sannyāsin.
The conclusion that only absolute renunciation can lead to final release from transmigration was presumably drawn soon afterwards. In theory this conclusion was generally accepted, and renunciation became the ideal mode of life for the Brāhmaṇa. In practice many compromises were made. For a long time the old ritual held its position; it was considered to be of limited and relative effect only, but it had its merits for the man who was not yet prepared to recognize the ultimate truth. Ahimsā was one of the most prominent values established by the meta-ritualists, and (655) it was adopted as a general rule of conduct for the Brāhmaṇa. Avoiding during the whole life all the faults which hurt living beings is the best means to attain the union with the universal Self, as Āpastamba teaches (v. above II 7). These faults and the virtues opposed to them are moral qualities which predominantly refer to social intercourse, and one can perhaps see here the transition of the idea of ahimsā (Āpastamba does not use the term), which was mainly concerned with bodily injury, to that of a general fellow feeling for all living beings as it is often understood in modern India. This also appears from Gautama's putting dayā 'compassion' at the head of the eight qualities of the soul (v. above II 4B).338 The primitive idea of the inverted world (IV), where one suffers the same fate one has caused to other beings, and the transmigration doctrine, both of which Manu adduces in order to justify the injunction of ahimsā, will however have contributed more to the spread of 'non-violence' than any ethical motive. The ethical motivation is secondary, the original motive was fear, a fear that resulted from the breakdown of the magico-ritualistic world-conception, but paved the way for establishing higher values.
Tübingen.
338 Cf. also Baudh 2, 10, 18, 10 (above p. 637, n. 8).
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Appendix III AHIMSĀ AND REBIRTH
Hanns-Peter Schmidt
[207] Ahimsā 'non-violence', or, more literally, 'non-injury', and the doctrine of metempsychosis are two ideas common to the three Indian religions, Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. It is reasonable to assume that these ideas go back to a common source. Whether ahimsā and metempsychosis depend on each other, are causally related, is an important problem. In an article published in 1968 I have attempted to answer the question of the origin of ahimsā and its connection with metempsychosis on the basis of the earliest literary evidence.
The relation of ahimsā to vegetarianism, which is considered its most important expression, was not investigated by me at that time. I only offered the suggestion that vegetarianism may be a popularized form of ahimsā. Originally strict ahimsā was probably restricted to the ascetic since it encompasses the abstention from injuring any living creature, be it animal or plant, and with the Jainas even of the elements water, fire and air. In a way my suggestion is corroborated by the view of the Jainas according to which there are two kinds of ahiņsā, viz., the gross (sthūla) and the subtle (sūkşma) one. Sthūlaahiņsā is that of the layman who must refrain from injuring beings with two to five sense-organs, sūkşma-ahimsā that of the monk who must avoid injuring any being (cf. Williams 54.64ff. Tähtinen 113). Also in Buddhism injuring lower beings is a lesser sin than injuring higher beings (Tähtinen 113. McDermott 272). In Hindu sources this is not explicitly stated, at least not in connection with the rule of ahimsā. But Manu 11.109ff. offers a hierarchy of beings which implicitly says the same thing. It comes out most clearly in 141ff.: the killing of small animals with bones requires more severe penance than that of animals without bones; these are followed by the cutting of fruit-trees, etc., living creatures in food, spices, fruits and flowers.
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A few words about the meaning and derivation of the word himsā are called for since there is still some difference of opinions. In the last century the word was generally explained as an abstract noun derived from the verb himsati which was analyzed as a truncated desiderative of han 'to strike, slay, kill'. This interpretation is still upheld by some scholars (e.g. Biardeau, Malamoud, Dumont, Zimmermann, Schreiner). It is even assumed that the desiderative meaning is still present in the abstract himsā as 'wish to kill or hurt'. This attempt at literal precision is however ill-advised: the verb himsati does not show desiderative meaning anywhere. The grammarians who proposed the derivation had to assume that the verb had already lost the desiderative force. The derivation from the [208] desiderative of han was first rejected by Wackernagel nearly a hundred years ago and definitively demolished by Liiders (775ff.).
The main objection against deriving hims from han is the fact that the loss of the root syllable is simply inexplicable. Other truncated desideratives do not offer any analogy: They are all due to the loss of the initial of the zero-grade root due to reduction of an unpronouncable consonant cluster (dipsati < dabh, śikṣati < sak, sīksati < sah, lipsati < labh, ripsati < rabh, pitsati < pad, dhīksati < dah). A zerograde desiderative from han could only have resulted in *jighasati; moreover, we have already in the Rgveda the vrddhi desiderative of jighāṁsati. Bartholomae believed that a perfect analogy was found in Avestan jihāt (Nyāyišn 1.1) which he explained as a desiderative of gam, but this should rather have been *jijahāt, *jijayhāt; it is therefore preferable to adopt the variant reading jahāt which is regular sigmatic aorist (Kellens 398 n. 2).
Wackernagel and Lüders derive himsati from a root his 'to injure'. Although the present stem-form himsa occurs earlier than the expected older form hinás, it is the latter which is almost exclusively used in the rest of Vedic literature. The objection - still raised by some linguists - that from a root hiş one should expect *hináşti and *himşánti (cf. pináști, pimşánti), has plausibly been countered by Lüders: in the case of hinásti, the assimilation has worked in the opposite direction. The shift of accent in the RV form himsanti has parallels in invanti, jínvanti, and pínvanti, from which secondary present stems were formed just as from himsanti.
In the following I am giving a shortened version of my earlier paper with some changes and additions (in particular III); in VI-VIII I discuss some of the work published on the subject since 1968 and advance some arguments which may support my original thesis.
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I
In order to find out how and in which context the uncompromising absolute value of ahimsā emerged, I adopted the same method Alsdorf (17ff.) had applied in separating the three historical layers to be distinguished in Manu's rules on meat-eating. In the first stage there is no prohibition, in the second, prohibition in daily life but obligation in the ritual, and in the third, absolute prohibition and advocacy of pure vegetarianism.
Regarding ahimsā we come to the following result:
1. The rule that ahimsā belongs to the duties of all four classes (M 10.63) is not known to sources older than Kautalya (1.3.13); on Vasiştha 4.4 cf. Alsdorf 29.
2. Vegetarianism as expression of ahiņsā (M 5.45-56). This may be less a rejection of the Vedic animal sacrifice than rather the recommendation of sannyāsin-like conduct. In the older sources there is no mention of consistent vegetarianism.
3. Vegetarianism with the exception of sacrificial animals (M 5.31–44). Killing in sacrifice was considered as non-killing since the creator has created the animals for sacrifice and the sacrifice serves the whole world (39). Himsā in ritual is considered to be ahimsā (44). Plants and animals (209] killed in sacrifice attain higher existences (40). The older legal texts do not mention the restriction of meateating to the sacrifice (on Vas 4.6 cf. Alsdorf 23f.). But in the last section of the Chāndogya-Upanișad (8.15) – which is probably a very late addition - we read:
He who has returned from the house of his teacher, established himself in his own household, raised lawabiding students, concentrated his senses on the self (ātman), did not injure any living being except on ritual occasions, enters the world of brahman and is not reborn.
This passage appears to be a polemic against the doctrine according to which rebirth can only be overcome by the renouncer who has given up the material sacrifice which yields only transitory fruits.
Since repeatedly meat-eating in the ritual is opposed to the illegal or random meat-eating (cf. M 5.33; 36; 38), the question arises whether in ancient India animals were slaughtered for food without consecration. According to the interpretation of Keith and Heesterman (1962: 19) the different ways of tying the animal to the sacrificial pole (TS 6.3.6.3) reflect the difference of sacral and profane
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killing. I do not think that this is cogent since it is also possible to assume a difference between grhya- and srauta-ritual. Misgivings regarding the assumption that random killing was common arise also from the fact that in hunting the idea of sacrifice is involved. In Mbh 1.109.13 the Rși Agastya, who is on a hunt in connection with a great sacrificial session (sattra), sprinkles the wild animals and dedicates them to the gods. In Mbh 3.37.41 the Pāņdavas go hunting with pure arrows and sacrifice to the fathers, gods and brahmins; in 3.79.8 they kill many kinds of wild animals for the sake of the brahmins. The opinion of Zimmermann (180ff.) that on the whole meat was consecrated seems to be justified.
It could of course be objected that in a Buddhist Jātaka (no. 199; cf. Alsdorf 61) and in Kautalya's Arthaśāstra (2.26) the slaughter of animals is mentioned without any reference to consecration. Furthermore, also Asoka, in the first rock edict, does not say anything about the consecration of the animals slaughtered for the imperial kitchen. He even explicitly prohibits the sacrifice of animals in the residence. Since, however, the three animals (two peacocks and one antelope), which were still slaughtered at the time of the edict, were probably connected with a dynastic cult (cf. Schmidt 1980: 48), a consecration of some kind probably took place.
After all, it would be surprising if in India unceremonial slaughter had been widespread while it was taboo in related cultures.
In classical Greece meat sold on the market had to come from animals sacrificed to a deity (Detienne-Vernant 11. Barthiaume 65).
The Zoroastrians have similar rules. He who eats unconsecrated meat will be delivered to the demons (Pahlavi Texts p. 126 32–33); the hairs of an unlawfully slaughtered animal become tips of arrows killing the slaughterer (Sāyast-nē-šāyast 10.8); if the head of the animal is not consecrated, the god Hõm will not allow the soul to pass the bridge of the judge to paradise (Persian Rivayats of Hormazyar Framarz, trsl. Dhabhar, 264). Boyce (150) mentions that certain religious rites were prescribed at the killing even of wild animals without, however, giving the source of this rule. [210]
I think it is improbable that we can deduce a general toleration of random slaughter from the lack of reference to the consecration of the victim in certain Indian sources. Unlawful slaughter will certainly have occurred, but the reaction will have been similar to what we know from the African Nuer: bad conscience and shame (Evans-Pritchard 263f.).
4. For the brahmin there are many rules which depend on ahimsā. Thus he is to earn his living only in professions which do not or do
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only little himsā (M 4.2). The brahmin and the warrior should avoid agriculture because by ploughing one injures living beings and is made dependent on others (M 10.83–84). In older times agriculture was not prohibited to the brahmin (cf. M 10.82), but Gautama 10.5 gives a restriction: agriculture and trade are allowed only if the brahmin does not do the work himself. He is also prohibited from selling animals for slaughter (Gaut 7.13), which may include sacrificial animals.
Ahimsā is one of the means to attain heaven (M 4.246), eternal bliss (M 12.83). The best means, however, is to give up the sacrifices prescribed in the karmakāņda of the Veda, since they lead to rebirth, and to follow the spiritual practices of the jñānakāņda which lead to knowledge of the ātman and union with it and thus overcome rebirth (M 12.85–93; 118; 125). This agrees in essence with renunciation considered as the ideal conduct for the brahmin.
5. The renouncer (sannyāsin) or wandering ascetic (pravrājaka, parivrājaka) is subjected to the strictest rules of ahimsā. Upon entering this stage of life one performs a sacrifice whose dakşiņās are one's whole possessions, and one reposits the sacred fires in oneself. One gives the promise of fearlessness (abhaya) to all beings which guarantees one's own fearlessness (M 6.38-40). Here abhaya is a quasi-synonym of ahimsā. The sannyāsin prepares himself for immortality by ahimsā (M 6.60; cf. 75). His aim is union with the highest self (paramātman) which is present in all beings (M 6.65). Ahimsā as a vow of the renouncer occurs in Baudh (2.10.18.2). The ascetic is to avoid injuring beings by word, thought and deed (2.6.11.23). The consecration culminates in the giving of abhaya to all beings (2.10.17.29–30). The renouncer should subsist only on food offered voluntarily and spontaneously, an idea attested already in Isopanişad 1, probably the oldest metrical Upanișad.
Rules similar to those for the sannyāsin apply to the vānaprastha, the hermit in the forest. He should live on flowers, roots and fruits which are ripe and fallen spontaneously (M 6.21) and show compassion towards all beings (M 6.8). Some hermits live on the meat of animals killed by beasts of prey (Baudh 3.3.6;2.6.11.15; Gaut 3.31). The hermit shall enter water slowly and bathe without beating it (Āp 2.9.22.13). This reminds one of the rule for the Jaina monk, who is not to beat water either.
6. The brahmacārin, the Veda student has to avoid honey, meat, perfumes, garlands, spices, women, everything turned sour and injury to living beings (M 2.177). In an earlier text he has to abstain from gambling, low service, taking something not offered to him and

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injury (Gaut 2.17; cf. M 2.179). Ahimsā is also presupposed in a domestic sūtra where the student is to fetch fire-wood without injuring trees (PGS 2.5.9). The student's vow (211) of ahimsā may be implied by the initiation ceremony where the teacher commits the pupil to all the gods and all the beings so that he may not be hurt (PGS 2.2.21). The same formula occurs already in ŚB 11.5.4.3-4. It seems obvious that the student in his turn had to avoid hurting beings.
7. Ahiņsā is one of the means to remove sins, one of the austerities or penances (tapas) to be performed by the penitent (M 11.223). Baudhāyana knows this rule, too (3.10.13; cf. 1.5.8.2 which recurs in the chapter on ascetic householders 3.2.27). This actually agrees closely with the vows of the renouncer. Following some of the renouncer's vows for a limited time was obviously considered a means to free oneself from minor sins. Entering the order of sannyāsa is the means to remove all sins (M 6.85; 96).
Apastamba inserts before the chapter on penances a passage on the knowledge of the ātman (1.8.22-23), implying that ahimsā is one of the preconditions for attaining final peace in the universal ātman. The description of the ātman is similar to that in the Isopanișad (cf. especially Isop 7 with Āp 1.8.23.1).
Apastamba refers to this section in the context of the duties of the snātaka (1.11.31.25; cf. 2.2.5.13). In general the attainment of the ātman is considered a prerogative of the sannyāsin (cf. Āp 2.9.21.13ff.), but it is the aim of every brahmin whose whole conduct is guided by sannyāsic ideals.
III
Forerunners of vegetarianism have been assumed in certain substitutions mentioned in the Brāhmaṇas.
1. In the new-and full-moon sacrifice a cake made of barley and rice is identified with the animal victim. The reason given is that when the five standard victims – man, horse, cow, sheep, goat - were offered, the sacrificial sap (medha) left them and entered the next in line while the victims themselves became different animals: kimpuruşa (mostly interpreted as monkey, but cf. now Parpola apud Staal II 62ff. who identifies him as an aboriginal who, like the other animals unfit for sacrifice, belongs to the wilderness), bos gaurus, gayal, camel and sarabha (four-horned gazelle). When the sap leaves the goat, the last in line, it enters barley and rice which, since they contain the sap of all the victims, equal them, and their offering
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accordingly equals an animal sacrifice (AB 2.8-9. ŚB 1.2.3.6-9. MS 3.10.2). The Vādhūla-Sūtra (IV 19a, cf. Heesterman 1985: 62) explicitly connects this with the creation of agriculture. It is of course tempting to see here at least the beginning of an abolition of animal sacrifices, and this conclusion was drawn by Max Müller (cf. Eggeling's note on ŚB: Lévi 136ff.). In my opinion it is, however, more than doubtful that the general replacement of animal sacrifice by vegetal sacrifice was intended. The fact that the kimpuruşa, etc. are declared unfit for sacrifice and therefore also inedible implies that the original victims remained edible in principle, fit for sacrifice. Also the use of the cake in the real animal sacrifice militates against the vegetarian interpretation; the cake here serves to put the sacrificial sap into the animals (ŚB 3.8.3.1-2. KB 10.5. AB 2.8–9. MS 3.10.2). I should [212] infer from the story only an upgrading of the vegetal sacrifice, caused probably by economic changes. The farmer will have kept only a few cattle, mainly as draught animals and milk-producers. When the solemn sacrifice was no longer the privilege of the rich magnates, and also the less affluent brahmin wanted to make his contribution and obtain the merit of the sacrifice, an upgrading of the more modest sacrifices had to follow. The Vādhūla version, in which two fishes bring the agricultural implements and warn the gods not to sacrifice before rice and barley have multiplied, gives an ecological argument. Ecological concern is also attested in Mbh 3.244 where the Pandavas move from a forest whose herds have been reduced by hunting to another one where there is plentiful game. Economic and ecological considerations may later have favoured vegetarianism, but were hardly its ultimate cause.
2. Vādhūla IV 74 teaches the equivalence of the soma with barley and rice and of the agnisțoma with the brahmaudana; at the end Vādhūla says that he prefers twelve rice-mess bowls to the somasacrifice and the dakşiņās. It is difficult to guess Vādhūla's motives, but possibly he advocates a more modest sacrifice.
3. Vādhūla IV 108 (cf. Witzel 391f.) reports that formerly one offered a human victim at the agnicayana; it was successively substituted by a horse and a hornless goat. The original five victims - man, horse, bull, ram, goat - whose heads had to be built into the fire-altar were released and substituted by effigies made of rice and barley (or in case of a long dīksā of clay or gravel: Vādhūla III 59). Since the human head is talked about at length in III 59, one wonders where it comes from. Actually, the systematizers of the ritual were in a dilemma as the many contradictory versions in the other texts show, on which we have the illuminating exposition of Heesterman
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(1985: 51f. with n. 41 and 42). The use of the head had been outlawed because it was asuric practice (SB 3.8.3.28–29), and the original beheading of the victim was replaced by strangulation. For whatever reason, the heads for the altar were not eliminated, but it became difficult to produce them. Originally they probably came from outside the sacrifice proper. According to BaudhśS 10.9 the human head and that of the horse were to be taken from battle victims.
Heesterman persuasively argues that the heads of the bull, the ram and the goat came from the dicing and banquet revelry mentioned immediately following. The variants are then attempts to fit the killings of the victims into the standardized form of the animal sacrifice, by necessity resulting in equations which always leave a remainder. Heesterman suggests that the freeing of the animals in Vādhūla IV 108 means being let out of the sacrificial context and beheaded. If this is correct, the substitutes are only a face-saving device to keep the decapitation out of the reformed ritual (in Vadhūla III 59 the effigies are set free, according to Caland thrown away, not offered). Then the Vādhūla passage cannot be considered as evidence for the progress on the way to ahimsā as Witzel seems to think. However, the evidence about the agnicayana heads, contradictory as it is, can be considered 'humanization' of the sacrifice inasmuch as it rejects human sacrifice.
4. In the ritual of the purchase of soma the somakrayiņi cow was, as Heesterman (1989: 352ff.) argues, originally the victim for the guest (213) reception of King Soma and, as can be concluded from the identification with the goddess Vāc and Idā, Manu's wife who was sacrificed, substitute for the sacrificer's wife. In BaudhśS (6.17 end) the offering of the madhuparka and the cow are mentioned, followed by the words tam adhvaryur visāsti 'the adhvaryu gives the various directions concerning her (the cow)', which could however also mean 'the adhvaryu cuts her up'. In 21.13 we read that according to Bodhāyana there should be a cake and a cow, according to Sālīki only a cake. Since no further details about the treatment of the cow are given, we do not know for certain whether Bodhayana still practised the sacrifice of the cow.
Heesterman thinks that the mysterious associations of the somakrayiņī were too horrible to be acted out ritually. There may be another reason for the release of the cow. In the myth told in the gonāmika (MS 4.2.3; cf. Heesterman 355) it is the female of the opposing party whose head is to be cut off. I should therefore consider it possible that the somakrayiņī was let go because she was the sacrificer's own, and the cow sacrifice had to be dropped because
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the rival's cow had been eliminated together with the rival himself. In ĀPŠS 10.27.5 the somakrayiņī is ransomed by another cow and sent to the sacrificer's cow-pen. Apparently the soma-seller is to keep the substitute cow. Whether here a trace of the original two cows set against each other is preserved remains doubtful since the older sources are silent. At any rate, the ātithyesti, a vegetal substitute for an original animal sacrifice, cannot be counted as evidence for the progress of vegetarianism since the motives are specific and unrelated to the reluctance to kill animals. The animal offering is, after all, made up for by the agnișomīya paśu the next day.
5. The anztapasū untrue, false animals in the Varuņapraghāsa of the cāturmāsyas consist of effigies of a ram and a ewe made of barley and are offered respectively to Varuna and the Maruts (MS 1.10.12. KS 36.6). The myth connected with the offerings relates that the creatures treated Prajāpati with contempt and left him after he had created them. Prajāpati became Varuņa and seized them (TB 1.6.4.1; cf. MS 1.10.10. KS 36.5); it is also said that the creatures or Prajāpati's sacrifice were attacked by the Maruts (TB 1.6.4.2; cf. MS 1.10.6;10. KS 36.5). While the contempt and the infidelity of the creatures can be considered as ansta 'untruth', this does not give a satisfactory reason for the anstapaśū even if we interpret the word as animals (destined to atone) for untruth' since the substitution by effigies made of barley would remain unexplained. A concrete reason for the barley is given in the White Yajurveda: Varuņa is winter, and barley, the winter corn, belongs to him; the creatures ate the barley and were therefore seized by Varuņa (ŚB 2.5.2.15–16). Thus it becomes clear why the offerings consist of barley - the stolen goods are returned.
However, also here the question why the offerings are animal effigies remains unanswered. One is reminded of the Greek Bovcovia where a bull eats the grain sacrifice on the altar and is consequently slaughtered (Burkert 137f.). It cannot be excluded that in the Varunapraghāsa an original animal sacrifice was replaced by the effigies because of some reinterpretation. The offerings for Varuņa and the Maruts, the ram and the ewe, represent the relationship between king and people (vis), and the pairing (mithuna) is their reconciliation [214]. For further aspects of this episode I refer to the remarks of Heesterman (1985: 135ff.). In general the cāturmāsyas do not contain animal sacrifices, but occasionally they are combined with them (cf. Bhide 172ff.), which shows that no vegetarian reform was connected with the anstapaśū.
6. The animals made of flour in the caitra-sacrifice (ŚGS 4.19) are supposed to be birds (cakravākas, etc.) according to the native
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commentary. Something similar is mentioned at the Phālgunīkarman (MGS 2.10.1ff. KGS 70). Motives for the substitution cannot be ascertained, and it would be rash to assume a vegetarian tendency.
Figures made of flour (pista) and other material as substitutes for animal victims occur in the Veda only in very specific cases, which can hardly be considered to be at the root of an incipient vegetarian movement. To judge from the known evidence, vegetal substitutes for animals became current only rather late when a vegetarian movement unrelated to the old ritual had emerged.
IV
At the time of the Brahmana-texts it was believed that the animal whose meat one eats will eat the eater in the other world (KB 11.3); the same idea is even applied to every kind of food (SB 12.9.1.1). In order to escape this fate ritual, magical means are applied which usually consist of equivalences or analogies between object and means. The most impressive example is found in the Bhrgu legend (ŚB 11.6.1. JB 1.42-44); here it is assumed that one can escape from being cut up by trees, eaten by animals and plants by correctly performing the daily agnihotra. The means for forestalling are called expiation (prāyaścitta or niskrti); accordingly the killing and destroying of creatures by which man lives was considered a sin. Every injury occurring in the ritual must be eliminated or nullified.
A very general solution was the assumption that something of the offering, animal or vegetal, that has become 'semen' is poured into the fire, the 'womb' of the sacrifice, so that the sacrifice is reborn from this fire (SB 11.1.2.1-2). The sacrifice is full of rites meant to eliminate death and injury, viz., the appeasement rites (śānti). In this context we also meet for the first time the word ahimsā: this or that action is performed so that there may be no injury (ahiņsāyai). By putting a dry blade of grass between the axe and the tree one averts the injury from the living tree to the dead blade (MS 3.9.3). Not enough, the falling tree may injure the worlds and must therefore be appeased (M 3.9.3). When the animal has been suffocated, the body orifices are sprinkled with water while an ahimsā formula is recited; thereby the vital breaths of the victim are freed from burning pain (MS 3.10.1). The rest of the water is poured on the earth which would be injured if the waters were not appeased before (MS 3.10.1). Of the pain arising during the killing it is also said that it concentrates in the heart and passes from there into the spit for roasting the heart;
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the spit is not thrown on the ground or into the water, but buried in wet ground with ahimsā formulas. In this way one is [215] delivered from Varuņa who is here the guardian over the sin of killing (SB 3.8.5.8-10).
Similar feelings are today still expressed by those who sacrifice goats to Durgā (E. Dimock apud O'Flaherty 176):
One does not usually eat meat because the animal does not want to be killed; it struggles and becomes angry, and so its body becomes full of tempestuous poisons that infect the meat so that it poisons anyone who eats it. But one can eat the meat of a goat sacrificed to Durgā, for the priest pacifies the goat until it is willing to die; and so its meat has none of the poison of hate.
This modern example can also be considered a good illustration of the motivation for the use of the root sam 'to appease' as a euphemism for 'to kill.
Frequently we hear that the sacrifices and creatures in general shall not be injured (e.g. TS 5.2.8.7; SB 2.5.1.14). Particular rites are meant to save the sacrificer's cattle from injury (KapKS 31.1: this passage does not refer to ahimsā in the later sense, viz., the prohibition of killing animals, as Tähtinen 3 thinks).
In the agnyupasthāna the sacrificer commits himself to the three worlds in order not to be injured (MS 1.5.11). This is probably the most general form of precautionary measures to protect oneself in all circumstances. The passage is of special interest since also the teacher commits the student to all beings so that he is not harmed (ŚB 11.5.4.3-4). The student is in need of this protection, especially since he cannot yet prevent possible consequences by ritual means.
In the constant reference to prevention of and atonement for death and destruction a principle is recognizable which runs through the whole ritual: the sacrifice with all the destruction it involves is meant to create an intact world. Everything hurt, everything killed is either reborn or healed or sent to the gods alive.
The idea that the eater is eaten by the eaten in the other world presupposes that he suffers a second death in the beyond. The texts do not tell us whether one visualized this as an eternal cycle or as a single process. It is not clear either where the person killed in the
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other world goes. The closest idea we find in the sources is that of recurrent death (punarmstyu) which occurs rather late in the Brāhmaṇa period and soon disappears again since it is replaced by the doctrine of reincarnation whose precursor it can be understood to be (for a detailed discussion cf. Horsch 1971: 136ff.). Also in this context the sources usually do not tell us whereto the recurrent death leads, whether to a new birth on earth or in yonder world. Probably it is the latter since in one instance (SE .3.8) it is said that he who enters yonder world without having freed himself from death, dies again and again in yonder world. Only in the latest text which mentions punarmệtyu is it equated with punarājāti, rebirth (GB 1.1.15; 1.3.22). All instances have in common that recurrent death should be struck off, destroyed by ritual acts, especially by the knowledge of such acts. In the end the ritual is pushed aside altogether. Recurrent death is averted when one knows that death is the self (BĀU 1.2.7), the sacrifices are meant for the self [216] (BĀU 1.5.2), when one knows the water that extinguishes the fire of death (BĀU 3.2.20), or the secret of the wind (BĀU 3.3.2).
At the same time we find the idea that the fruits of the sacrificial work are transitory, are consumed in yonder world. Their destruction can be prevented by faith (śraddhā: JB 2.53-54).
He who goes into the wilderness and worships with the words 'faith is our asceticism' reaches the brahman, the highest principle and fundament of the world, on the path of the gods. But he who worships in the village with the words 'sacrifice and donations are our gift' reaches, on the path of the fathers, the moon, King Soma, who is the food of the gods; he remains there up to the dregs, i.e. the new moon, and then returns on the same way to earth, is reborn as a plant, an existence he can escape only if he is eaten by somebody and is reborn from that person's semen, according to his conduct as a brahmin, kșatriya or vaisya, or even as a dog, a pig or a caņdāla. The worst sinners go to a third place and become minute beings of whom it is said 'be born and die', and who return incessantly, with no chance of salvation (ChU5.3–10. BĀU 6.2). [Similar ideas are attested in Borneo (Hertz 60f.)].
This passage is of special interest since it combines several ideas which are of importance in our context. It contrasts the ascetic in the wilderness with the sacrificer in the village; only the former attains salvation, the latter faces a doubtful future which does not depend only on his sacrificial work, but also on his conduct and even on chance. Thus salvation from transmigration is possible only for him who renounces the world.
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The karman-theory is also implied here. It was first suggested (BĀU 3.2.13) and then further developed by Yājñavalkya. In the discussion with King Janaka he says that the ātman is the ruler of the universe who does not increase by the good (sādhu) and does not decrease by the non-good (asādhu); he who knows this is not affected by good or bad work (BĀU 4.4.22-23). The following shows that Yājñavalkya considers the striving for the ātman as the highest goal for the brahmin. The wandering ascetics (pravrājaka) go to the ātman as their own world. The ancient wise men knew this and did not desire progeny, nor property, nor the world. At the end of the passage we meet the term abhaya 'fearlessness', known from the consecration of the sannyāsin. According to Yājñavalkya the brahman is abhaya, the state of salvation in which one need not fear any longer (cf. BĀU 4.2.4).
In BĀU 1.4.2 we hear that fear is there where there is a second. This statement is probably to be ascribed to Yājñavalkya who thereby gives a clear formulation of his brahman-ātman monism.
When Yājñavalkya decided to become a wandering ascetic himself, he wanted to divide his possessions between his two wives. Maitreyi, who was a brahmavādini, a woman learned in the Veda, asked whether the whole world with all its riches would make her immortal. When Yājñavalkya denied this, she asked him to tell her all he knew, and he taught her his ātman-theory (BĀU 4.5).
At the end of his life Yājñavalkya goes into the wilderness. Here we can recognize a first step towards the later doctrine of the four stages of life [217] (āśrama), pravrajyā later being the fourth and last stage. Since he mentions indifference to progeny as characteristic for the pravrājaka, he probably considered renunciation permissible at every period of life, although he himself took this step only in old age. From the reference to earlier wise men we can conclude that there were already outsiders who had withdrawn from the world. Although we do not know what their ideas were, it is probable that they were among those thinkers who sought to overcome recurrent death by knowledge.
Yājñavalkya's thoughts move already on a higher level of philosophical abstraction. The devaluation of the traditional ritual started already earlier as we have seen in the context of the doctrine of recurrent death. More examples for this are found among those passages which imply the interiorization of the ritual. Without questioning the authority of the Veda, the ritual is interiorized by substituting the practical performance by pure knowledge. For
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instance, he who applies himself to the private recitation of the Veda (svādhyāya), performs a great sacrificial session (mahāsattra), the sacrifice for the brahman, the totality of Vedic knowledge and as such the universal principle; he is freed from recurrent death, becomes of the same self as the brahman if he knows the equivalences of the ritual acts of the sattra (SB 11.5.6.3-9).
The life of the brahmacārin is also identified with a long sacrificial session; the brahmacārin does not sacrifice, but his duties are identified with the ritual acts (ŚB 11.3.3.2). The renouncer is an ātmayājin who, when he eats, sacrifices in himself, and the sacred fires are identified with the vital breaths (Baudh 2.10.18.8–9). The teacher commits his pupil to all beings in order to protect him from harm ($B 11.5.4.3-4); in turn the pupil has to abstain from harming the beings (cf. above II 6). The sannyāsin gives the beings the promise of fearlessness, and thus has nothing to fear from the beings.
In the same sense of the interiorization of the ritual we must understand the source in which the term ahimsā occurs for the first time in the sense of the new doctrine (ChU 3.17.4-6). Ghora Angirasa equates the whole life with a soma-sacrifice. He assigns to pleasures and progeneration their proper place without depreciating them. He identifies the dakşiņās with asceticism, alms-giving, uprightness, non-injury and speaking the truth. The common denominator of these virtues is self-denial. By asceticism one gives of one's own substance; thus the offerings of the dīksita are what is growing less of his body (MS 3.6.6). By alms-giving one gives of one's property. Uprightness and speaking the truth are not matters of course either. To cheat and lie, be it consciously or unconsciously, belongs to everyday life; one lies in anger, in drunkenness and while dreaming (RV 7.86.6). Therefore man, who (by nature) speaks untruth, has to take the vow of truth in the ritual since he thereby enters the world of the gods, who (by nature) speak the truth (ŚB 1.1.1).
Non-injury is not the rule in daily life either; by practising it one denies oneself the natural tendency to live on other beings. Apparently Ghora did not perform real sacrifices. In the end he (actually: Ghora's addressee, Krşņa Devakīputra; WB) became without thirst and wished for release by entering the realm of the light of the primeval seed, truth, which lies beyond the sky and the sun. It [218] is not clear whether complete mergence in the light of truth or the survival of the individual soul is meant. On the whole it seems that Ghora's attitude agrees with the last stage of life inasmuch as he renounces all desires. By conducting his life as an
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interiorized sacrifice he actually anticipates the way of the later householder who follows the sannyāsic ideal according to the possibilities of worldly life. Later doctrine, however, restricted the internal sacrifice to the sannyāsin, a doctrine which did of course not go unchallenged.
The idea that only renunciation and withdrawal from the world can lead to salvation from transmigration was already conceived by Yājñavalkya or the munis he refers to as his predecessors. Although he does not mention ahimsā, it can be inferred that it went as a matter of course with his identification of the brahman-ātman with abhaya 'fearlessness' which is also the gift or promise the sannyāsin gives to the creatures when undergoing his dīkņā. Every karman, every deed produces a fruit, a result, which must be consumed. The good ritual work which was once believed to lead to heaven and immortality was now viewed to be transitory. Once the merit had been used up, a rebirth in this world resulted which was more and more considered to be undesirable because it was unpleasant, full of pain and grief. The generalization of the ritual karman-doctrine to one which included all deeds of man intensified the pressure and thus the desire to evade one's fate. If the sacrifice could secure only a temporary stay in heaven, it was devalued, became meaningless for the truly knowing one, and with it also the magical means by which one had believed it possible to annul death and injury. Ahimsā became by necessity one of the main demands of the thinkers who transcended the ritual. Once one has lost confidence in the magical manipulations, the fear of the revenge of the victim which is repeatedly adduced as a reason for ahimsā comes to the fore again (cf. M 5.55).
Especially for the brahmins ahimsā became a general rule. To avoid during the whole life all those mistakes which hurt living beings is the best means to attain the union with the universal ātman (ĀpDhS 1.8.23.4). The mistakes and the opposing virtues which are mentioned in this context refer especially to social intercourse, and here one can perhaps see the transition of the idea of ahimsā which was mainly concerned with physical injury to an ethical idea in a broader sense, to compassion with all beings. Gautama (8.22-23) puts compassion (dayā) at the head of the eight qualities of the soul. For Vasiştha (10.5) compassion counts more than giving. The sannyāsin does not eat before having given a share to the beings out of compassion (Baudh 2.10.18.10). Ahimsā, non-injury, abhaya, fearlessness and dayā, compassion, are ideals which the brahmin in general is to follow, probably after the model of the sannyāsin.
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VI
Two monographs on ahimsā, both rich in material, appeared in the 1970s; the work of Alsdorf and myself remained unknown to them. The book of Walli does not offer any historical perspectives. Tähtinen discusses [219] the question of origins in an appendix (132ff.). Although he has recognized the ritual ahimsā-theory, he wants to separate it from that of the śramaņas, the ascetics. Following earlier scholars he assumes that there were non-Vedic and non-brahmanic sages (muni) and ascetics (yati). The older Upanişads are supposed to represent a partial fusion of sacrificial culture and ascetic culture, of ritual thought and moral thought. Jainism is considered as an old non-brahmanic tradition which historically goes back at least to Pārsva, the 23rd Tīrthankara (ca. 9th-8th century BC). Also the eightfold path of the Buddha is called the old path which has been followed by previous Buddhas; ahimsā is one of the virtues included in it. Some authors look for pre-Aryan origins of, or at least influences in, Buddhism and Jainism although concrete proof for this assumption is lacking. Jaini (169) argues that the Jainas have no memory of a time when they fell within the Vedic fold and could accordingly not have started as an ahimsā oriented sect within the Vedic tradition. Even if one concedes the rather vague possibility that Buddhism and Jainism originated in a completely different milieu than Vedism, the question remains against which practices the ascetic movements were directed.
The Buddhists and the Jainas stress the ksatriya descent of their founders and the opposition to the brahmins. Their followers came mainly from the upper classes (Oldenberg 74; Gombrich 56ff.). The motives which induced especially ksatriyas to renounce the world are not yet known (see, however, Dundas 2002: 153ff.; WB). Urbanization has been made responsible, and also plagues have been considered as an inducement to withdrawal from the world (Gombrich). Since our sources are silent about this, such guesses should not be taken too seriously. But we can assume with some plausibility that in kşatriya circles an independent world view was developed which was opposed to many brahmanic ideas rooted in ritualistic thinking. As is well-known, in the Upanişads new ideas, especially the doctrine of transmigration, were introduced by ksatriyas, and brahmins became their willing students. The problem was last summarized by Horsch (1966: 427-448). It will not be too far from the truth if one assumes that the Buddha and the Jina belonged to the same line of tradition, but went beyond the royal sages of the Upanişads by rejecting the Veda and the ritual based
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on it. That Buddhism was a reaction against late Vedic ideas would appear from the anātman-doctrine which can hardly be anything but a criticism of the ātman-doctrine.
In the brahmanic sources we can follow the evolution of the ideas of ahimsā and renunciation, in Buddhism and Jainism they are there right from the beginning, it is true, in opposition to Vedic ritualism, but a ritualism which had already been superseded by the meta-ritualists who interiorized the sacrifice. The Buddhists and Jainas could do what the meta-ritualists could not: they could deny the validity of the Veda whose rituals were kept alive by the representatives of the karmakāņda.
My article has partly found approval, partly been received with reserve. Della Casa follows my interpretation nearly to the letter. Schreiner (302 n. 23) thinks that Della Casa differs from me in assuming that ahimsā was practised not because one gave up atonement, but because one doubted the possibility of atonement; this is wrong since I had stated exactly the [220] latter view (650; 652). Spera, who deals mainly with ahimsā in the Mahābhārata, the Purāņas, and in Jainism, refers to my work without criticism. But he thinks that the way of the Jainas is parallel to that of the Hindus, but different. The Jainas are supposed to be pre-Aryan, animistic and sedentary, the Hindus polytheistic (with magical tendencies) and nomadic. This view is without foundation just as similar ones already mentioned. I have shown that there are animistic ideas in the Veda; moreover, animism and polytheism do not exclude each other. At the time when the ideas we are concerned with arose, the Vedic people were not nomadic any longer.
Wezler (87 n. 252), who seems to agree with my main arguments, doubts that the 'magico-ritual fear of destroying life in any form' was the only root of strict ahimsā and the asceticism resulting from it. He especially objects to the 'monocausal interpretation. Such an interpretation was not intended, and I have not claimed that asceticism is derived from ahimsā. After all, ahimsā is only part of the ascetic practices, and asceticism existed long before the development of the strict ahimsā-doctrine. My work had the aim to follow the development of the idea of ahimsā in the sources extant and to abstain from general hypotheses as far as possible. I do not at all exclude the possibility that the further investigation of the complex of renunciation and asceticism can uncover other aspects which contributed to the spread of ahimsā. So general a criticism as that of Wezler is not very helpful since there is not even a suggestion where the other causes might be sought.
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Incidentally it should be mentioned that Wezler (110f.) has misrepresented my position regarding the genesis of the āśramas. I explicitly stated (651) that I do not share the opinion that the āśramas were created by the brahmins in order to bring ascetic movements under their control.
Schmithausen concedes (116) that my hypothesis shows at least one of the roots of ahimsā in the whole ascetic tradition of India. He repeats Wezler's objection to 'monocausal explanations (n. 95). He points out that archaic hunting societies often restrict the killing of animals to a minimum or pacify the lords of the animals, for which he refers to an example from South America. Not only the fear of the animal's revenge is a motive, but also the awe of taking life and the respect for life, and furthermore the realization of the relationship of all living creatures and an ecological instinct. But he immediately concedes that these notions were not necessarily differentiated by those people. With these remarks nothing new is added to my thesis.
The behaviour of the hunting societies agrees closely with that of the Vedic ritualists as will be shown below (VIII). Schmithausen thinks that the close connection of ahimsā with compassion cannot be derived from the fear of revenge, but it can be derived from awe which can also be considered as evidence for an explicit ethicization of ahimsā. I cannot see such a difference between fear and awe since awe is sublimated fear, and compassion in its most literal sense causes fear. Schmithausen deals with Buddhism in which ahimsā and compassion tend to coalesce, but he should have mentioned that also in Hinduism and Jainism both concepts [221] are closely linked. The central importance of fearlessness for the sannyāsin must be stressed since it brings out the close connection of fear with himsā.
Halbfass (87–129), to whom we owe a valuable exposition of the Pūrvamīmāmsā view of the ritual himsā, doubts that the Vedic ritualists' fear of committing himsā was the ultimate source of the later renunciatory ahimsa-doctrine (113). He thinks the concern about the harming and killing was not intrinsic to, or inseparable from, their ritualism. He rather wants to make external factors responsible for the development which led to the sharp antagonism between Vedic ritualism and ahimsā. The ritualists 'may have been concerned that certain means employed in the ritual might violate rules that were not those of the rituals themselves, and unleash forces that might turn against the ritualists'. But he adds that we do not know the nature and origin of such fears. These remarks can hardly be accepted as a refutation of my hypothesis.
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That the magico-ritual elimination of killing and injury was an integral part of the world-view of the ritualists cannot be denied unless one denies the ritualists' credibility. It is obvious that the emancipation from the magical approach has to be sought in the ritualists' own circle. This appears clearly from the ethicization of the karman-concept in the Upanişads which reflect the views of the meta-ritualists. Halbfass's position is all the more surprising since in the course of his investigation of the Pūrvamīmāmsā standpoint (92) he quotes the Upanişad doctrine of the way of the fathers, which leads to rebirth, and the way of the gods, which leads to the liberation from transmigration. This doctrine was developed in ritualistic circles. For the Upanişadic thinkers the way of the ritual was the lesser one, that of the knowledge of the unity of the world in ātman-brahman the higher one. The brahmins themselves were divided into the conservative ritualist party and the renunciatory philosopher party. This division has survived to this day, whichever concessions many or most ritualists may have made to vegetarianism.
Proudfoot discusses Alsdorf's and my work in his Canberra dissertation of 1977 which was published in 1987. He rejects Alsdorf's interpretation of Manu 5.5–56. He thinks (8f.) that
Alsdorf conjures up the image of a collision between the newly emerging values of vegetarianism-cum-ahimsā and the conservative inertia of tradition. Alsdorf makes nothing of the fact that the author of Manu saw all the rules as having an element in common: all are concerned with governing the consumption of food. If nothing else, this is suggestive of how practice may be instrumental in creating linkages between ideologically unrelated institutions. However because of his commitment to a simple causal relationship between vegetarianism and ahimsā, Alsdorf is precluded from exploring more subtle patterns of multiple causation.
Since the author does not reveal how he views the linkages and multiple causation, nothing can be gained from this criticism. It is certainly legitimate to ask why Manu composed the section on food in the way he did, but whatever the answer may be, it will not change anything in Alsdorf's demonstration of historical layers.
While Proudfoot calls Alsdorf's work an “a priori interpretation' of causality, he labels mine as an 'unstructured description'. By this
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characterization he means that in contrast to Alsdorf I do not set out to organize the material around a consistent theme or portray a pattern which [222] will account for the evolution of the ahimsā ideal or any aspect of its practice'. When he continues by stating that I rather submit to the judgement of Manu, this is a patent error, since I took Manu's list only as a convenient starting-point for the historical investigation. Accordingly it goes without saying that soon questions arise to which Manu has no answer. My conclusions are therefore not drawn from Manu's material, but from older sources. Proudfoot also objects to my inclination to attribute to ethical motives less influence on the spread of ahimsā than to the fear of revenge or punishment in the hereafter or a future birth. He tries to marginalize the retribution mentioned in M 5.55 – the eater is eaten by the food in the hereafter – but since it is also mentioned in 5.33, it will have played a role which cannot be neglected all the more since it goes back to old models. The fact that Manu prefers the ethical motivation does not speak against this: it is not surprising that the learned brahmin makes use of the more sublime interpretation.
Proudfoot suggests that the idea of rebirth ‘arose as a new social philosophy rationalizing disparities of wealth or a crystallizing social structure since transmigration has ethical implications. This would turn my conclusions on its head. By letting Manu's guiding hand slip I am supposed to lack the basis for refuting it. I do not understand how anyone can get the idea that I intended to refute Manu. My concern was historical and accordingly different from Manu's summary of views existing at his time. Proudfoot does not make any suggestion how the new social philosophy is supposed to have looked. Just as in the criticism of Alsdorf he leaves it at pseudo-theoretical remarks. The lack of substantiation makes a discussion impossible.
In his summary (151) Proudfoot states that in Mbh 12.255:
ahimsā is identified with a fundamental conception of the life-process and of the relationship between life in this world and the next, which controverted the view that life is dynamically sustained through a circulatory exchange between this world and the hereafter in which sacrifice was an essential link.
He maintains that this 'puts a new complexion upon the reaction' I proposed between transmigration and the devaluation of the
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sacrifice in favour of renunciatory ahimsā, because in the episode the intermediation of ascetic values is not involved. I wonder how this late source can be used for the purpose to refute or change conclusions drawn from earlier material. Moreover, the episode does contain references to renunciatory values as Proudfoot himself has noted (128). His summary does not properly reflect the results of his own analysis.
Brian K. Smith (1990, 196 n. 33, repeated in Doniger and Smith 1990: XXXII n. 39) objects to my opinion on the ground that concern for the victim is universal and that therefore there is no 'ritual ahimsā'. In the ritual texts ahimsā also refers to the prevention of injury to the sacrificer, his progeny and cattle. Smith remarks: 'such a self-interested ahimsă in relation to oneself and one's possessions is of course a desideratum in Vedism, but that is certainly not the ahimsā of post-Vedism.' The later conception of ahimsā, it is true, differs from the Vedic one, but this does not exclude that the one is derived from the other. I have argued that the ritual ahimsā [223] was turned on its head by the later thinkers. Hindu, Jain and Buddhist ahimsā also remained self-interested, though the motivation changed.
Chapple (4ff.) has the impression that Alsdorf and myself minimize the importance of Jainism in the development of ahimsā and vegetarianism. He also states that both of us 'claim that Mahāvīra was not a vegetarian, a claim that has been contradicted by the Jaina scholar H. R. Kapadia'. He does not attempt to refute Alsdorf's (8ff.) demonstration that two of the oldest canonical Jaina texts unambigously show that Jaina monks did eat meat and fish when they received it as alms, and that in another canonical text the sick Mahāvīra refuses to accept two pidgeons prepared especially for himself, but asks for meat of a chicken killed by a cat. Thus Mahāvīra's attitude towards meat-eating agreed with that of the Buddha who did allow it if the animal was not killed specifically for the monk. Alsdorf (53f.) looked for the origins of ahimsā and vegetarianism in the pre-Aryan Indus civilization.
I disagreed (627). It is true that the presence of animal bones in the refuse of Mohenjo-daro is by itself not a cogent argument for the absence of vegetarianism in that culture. My main argument was and is that the Vedic sources do allow us to reconstruct a development within the Vedic culture. Chapple is of the opinion that recent scholarly investigations tend to refute my conclusions. The evidence he quotes is far from cogent. Even if one assumes that the animals on the Indus civilization seals and amulets were

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worshipped, this does not imply that all of them were inviolable and not sacrificed. The possible links between the figures in postures similar to those of yoga in [229] Jainism and Hinduism have no bearing on the ahiņsā problem since yoga is not inseparably connected with ahimsā.
VII
The dīkṣita, the brahmacārin and the sannyāsin all undergo a consecration (dīkņā), subject themselves to severe restrictions which to a large extent are the same for all of them. In order to determine to which of the three the vegetarianism of the brahmin can be traced back, we must consider the differences. I myself stated (1968: 651) that the vows of the sannyāsin are probably modelled after those of the brahmacārin and that sannyāsa can be considered as a return to brahmacarya. The difference between the two is essentially that the brahmacārin strives for the knowledge of the Veda, the sannuāsin for the knowledge of the ātman. The prohibition of meat for the brahmacārin and the dīkṣita had originally nothing to do with vegetarianism and the later ahiņsā-doctrine. Avoidance of meat and sex belongs to the preparation for sacrifice also elsewhere (e.g. Greece Burkert 60f. Rome: Ovid, Fasti IV 657-658). For the brahmacārin and the dīksita the restrictions are temporary, for the sannyāsin permanent. The dīkşita prepares himself for the sacrifice which he must perform once he has entered upon this road. The sannyāsin divests himself of his ritual utensils before he undergoes the dīkņā for the new āśrama. The strictly vegetarian brahmin will originally have hardly undergone the dīkşā for the soma sacrifice, but will, as far as possible, have followed the rules for the sannyāsin for whom the private recitation of the Veda (svādhyāya) remains a duty (Baudh 2.10.18.22; 24. Ap 2.9.21.10). The brahmacārin acquires the knowledge of the Veda by repetition, the sannyāsin preserves it for himself by repetition.
Vegetarianism has become the cornerstone of ahimsā because abstaining from meat is possible, from vegetal food not. That the himsā, which cannot be avoided even in the vegetarian mode of life, was a deep concern for the brahmin appears from Manu 3.68: The householder has five butcheries, viz., hearth, grinding stone, broom, mortar and pestle, water vessel. Atonements for the himsā caused by these implements are the five daily 'great sacrifices' for the gods, fathers, creatures, men and the brahman (the Veda in form of the private recitation).
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These sacrifices are first mentioned in SB 11.5.6.1ff., a passage already mentioned above in Section V. Kane (II 697) says they are morally and spiritually more progressive than the śrauta sacrifices; he also thinks that they were introduced because everybody could afford them. I leave it open whether these sacrifices are a late development or rather an ancient custom. That they occur in the sources in contexts which presuppose the interiorization of the ritual is probably due to the fact that they had no place in the srauta ritual and could gain their importance only in those circles that devalued the sacrifice on a grand scale.
[230] A more detailed version of the last and most eminent of the 'great sacrifices', the svādhyāya, is found in TA 2.10ff. As in SB it is said that by the svādhyāya one gains an imperishable world, the liberation from recurring death and becomes united with the brahman (2.14.3; cf. 2.19.4). In 2.15.5 we read:
when the fire was born, evil (pāpman) took hold of it, by the oblations the gods warded the evil off, by the sacrifice the evil of the oblations, by the dakşiņās the evil of the sacrifice, by the brahmin the evil of the dakşiņās, by the metres the evil of the brahmin, by the svādhyāya the evil of the metres; the svād hyāya is free from evil, it is a divine purifier.
According to 2.16-17, officiating at the sacrifice and accepting dakşiņās leaves the brahmin empty, and he must fill himself again by thrice reciting the Veda. By officiating one milks the metres, and by svādhyāya of the words of the ceremonies concerned on a pure place in the wilderness the metres are filled up again. Then follow the identifications which make the svādhyāya an interiorized sacrifice.
In this text there is not yet any mention of renunciation, but the pre-eminence of the svādhyāya, which outweighs the whole sacrificial ritual, is clearly expressed. The evil the brahmin takes upon himself by the priestly office can be atoned by the svādhyāya. A further step will lead to rejecting the priestly office and also to giving up own sacrifices. One may ask why then still sannyāsa was needed if one could attain the liberation from recurring death already by the svādhyāya. This question was asked already in early times. We can infer this from a Dharmasūtra (Ap 2.9.21.2) where it is stated that one can attain peace (kşema) if one lives in all stages of life according to the laws; that ksema refers here to salvation appears from th that shortly afterwards (14) the word is used of the goal of the
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sannyāsin. Also Vasiştha 8.17 is of the opinion that by doing one's duties (among them that to sacrifice) one never forfeits the world of brahman.
Repeatedly the Dharmasūtras polemize against sannyāsa; the Vedic sacrifices, including animal sacrifices, are obligatory, and only one āśrama, that of the householder, is recognized because the others do not produce progeny (Āp 2.9.23.9–10. Baudh 2.6.11.27ff. Gaut 3.36). Implicitly the view of some teachers that one can renounce immediately after brahmacarya is rejected; renunciation is restricted to childless persons, widowers and generally to septuagenarians whose children are independent (Baudh 2.10.17.2–5). The resistance is not so much directed against renunciation as such, but against withdrawal from the world before one has done one's social duties. Since not everybody could hope to live long enough to qualify for sannyāsa, it was nearly unavoidable for the teachers of dharma to hold out the prospect of salvation to everybody, in whichever stage of life he may be.
The attitude of the Dharmasūtras is also represented in the epic story of the young forest hermits and Indra in the form of a golden bird (Mbh 12.11), which Wezler (95ff.) has dealt with. Indra teaches the boys that it is not they who are the true eaters of food remnants, but rather the householder who offers the five 'great sacrifices' and eats the remnants. The story has a parallel in the Buddhist Vighāsajātaka (393) in which the ascetics live on remnants of flesh which beasts of prey have left. This (231] corresponds to the rule of the Dharmasūtras according to which the vānaprasthas, or certain vānaprasthas, live on such remnants of prey, even though the Jātaka, by using the word kuņapa 'carrion', views the conduct of the ascetics not only as foolish, but also as reprehensible or at least disgusting. Wezler has aptly characterized the conduct of the grhastha, the true eater of food remnants, as innerworldly asceticism whose propagation is a criticism of the asceticism of those who withdraw from the world.
The true eaters of food remnants were not all vegetarians; at least Yudhisthira and the Pāņdavas were not, and probably not the brahmins either who followed them (Mbh 3.2.2; 8; 55ff.). The Pāņdavas were not vānaprasthas in the sense of the āśrama doctrine; vānaprastha as āśrama involves ahimsā, but not in principle vegetarianism. In contradistinction to the vānaprastha, who must live on food he has gathered himself, the sannyāsin is allowed to beg. It is noteworthy that nowhere in the brahmanic literature is anything said about the question of whether the sannyāsin is allowed to accept
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meat or not. Remembering the agreements between the rules for the sannyāsin and those for the brahmacārin we may conclude that the sannyāsin had to avoid meat.
In an article first published in 1964 (reprinted 1985: 41ff.) Heesterman has pointed out that the ideal brahmin is a renouncer. Among the five categories of brahmins mentioned in Mbh 12.77.2–6 the first, the brahmasama, is concerned only with learning and the preservation of the tradition. The devasama, who possesses the knowledge of the three Vedas, is also engaged in his own sacrificial work. The kşatrasama serves princes as sacrificial priest and as housepriest and is probably also officiating at animal sacrifices. Heesterman correctly states that the brahmasama follows the jñānamārga, the devasama the karmamārga; but it must be added that also the kşatrasama follows the karmamārga, and takes on himself more evil or defilement because he does not only carry his own, but also that of his patron. To keep free from evil and defilement to a large extent is possible only for the brahmasama. He follows the path inaugurated by the Upanişads, contemplates the brahman, the totality of the Veda which is identical with the absolute. The interiorization of the ritual was the achievement of an intellectual élite that absolutized ahimsā which finally resulted in vegetarianism. The prestige of the renouncing sage has certainly contributed to the spread of vegetarianism; the aspiration towards higher spiritual and social status has played a role alongside the hope for a better rebirth and eventual salvation.
Although the respect for life is attested with many peoples and the inhibition to kill is universal, outside India fundamental vegetarianism was not common in antiquity nor is it at present. In Greece animal sacrifice was rejected and vegetarianism advocated by the Orphics and Pythagoreans; other philosophers criticized animal sacrifice, but vegetarianism has found only isolated following. It is remarkable that, just like in India, it appears in philosophical circles, and especially in those which also teach metempsychosis. Empedocles (fragment 115) mentions bloodshed among the causes of irksome rebirths.
VIII
The only critic who has offered a counter-thesis to my thesis is Heesterman (1984). He concedes that bloody sacrifices were performed and even required the world over in spite of the universal awe and fear of killing (122). But he continues: 'It would seem,
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however, that it is only in India that we find an overwhelming concern with the technical-ritualistic means to take away the sting of sacrificial death and to undo the injury.' This is manifestly erroneous. On the contrary it could be said that the consciousness of guilt and the tendency to shift the blame from one's shoulders was greater in ancient Greece since there we hear even of the stoning - symbolic or not - of the actual performers (Burkert 165f.). The magical means by which one tried to neutralize and annul the actual killing are attested with many peoples, and the agreements with details of the Vedic animal sacrifice are striking. Therefore it cannot be said with Heesterman (123) that the obsessive concern about the ritual undoing of the injury points to the impending collapse of the violent sacrifice.
It will be useful and instructive to quote here the main similarities which exist between the hunting and sacrificial customs of North Asiatic and other peoples collected by Meuli and the Vedic animal sacrifice. Quite generally it is said that in previous times men and animals lived in peace (Meuli 225). This has a parallel in the Indian legend of the ages of the world: in the kytayuga, the golden age, animals were inviolable (ahimsya), only in the tretayuga the animal sacrifice was introduced (Mbh 12.137.73–74). From India Meuli only quoted the victim's agreement to its own sacrifice (267 n. 2). 'Causing to agree' (samjñapana) is used in the Brāhmaṇas as a euphemism for ‘killing'; also the consent of the parents, brother and companion of the victim is required (SB 3.7.4.5). The victim's shivering and shuddering, caused by the sprinkling with water, is taken as consent (Meuli 264f.); this is also known in Greece (266f.). Although the animal is sprinkled with water in Vedic India, this particular interpretation is not attested in the sources, but we know it in recent times from Nepal (Witzel 391 n.54). With Hindukush tribes shaking the head three times counts as consent of the goat (Jettmar 212); here the additional question is asked whether the offering is welcome to the gods, and the victim's shuddering is interpreted as a positive sign of the gods (cf. 254). With the Cheremis the orifices of the horse's body are closed at the killing so that the soul is kept inside (Meuli 259). This can be compared to the purification of the vital breaths (prāņa), i.e. the body orifices, of the victim by the sacrificer's wife; here the prāņas are identified with the waters, and thus the food of the gods goes to them alive (SB 3.8.2.4; cf. Schwab 110f.). While dismembering the animal the bones must be kept undamaged (Meuli 259).
The same is the case in the Vedic animal sacrifice and of course also in the asvamedha (Schwab 105); for the aśvamedha the earliest
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reference is found in RV 1.162.18–20. With the North Asiatic peoples animals (and men) have several souls of which one remains with the bones and dies only when the [224] bones disintegrate. In the sacrifice the bones must remain undamaged; a god or spirit collects them; with the two other souls the animals join the herd of the gods (Friedrich 193). This reminds us of RV 1.162.2 and 7 where the horse joins the herd of the gods and many other, also post-Vedic, instances which state that the animal goes to the gods in heaven. Certain parts of the animal – they vary from place to place - are considered to be the seat of life (Meuli 246f.). These parts are either preserved and buried with the bones or offered to the spirit; swallowed raw or cooked; partly offered to the spirits and partly eaten by elect people or the whole community (256f.). The idā of the Vedic animal sacrifice (Schwab 128; 138ff.; 148f.) is a perfect parallel: it consists of parts of the heart, the tongue, the liver and the kidneys (some sources add other pieces of meat). Meuli (248) quotes as general motives for the relation of the hunter to the animal fear of the animal, compassion with and concern for it. This agrees with what Schmithausen has adduced from South America.
Heesterman is of the opinion that the classical ritual of the brahmins has replaced an agonal ritual which was permeated by violence. The adversary or rival, who was an integral participant in the pre-classical ritual, is supposed to have been eliminated, the sacrificer to have united in himself the roles of the two rivals and thereby created a non-violent, private and transcendent universe, isolated from the reality of society. Heesterman believes that in the course of the elimination of violence from the ritual the death of the victim came to be regarded as a ritual mistake. The original method of killing by beheading was replaced by suffocation, strangulation. I think it is rather questionable to view killing by suffocation as a step towards a less violent and cruel sacrifice, and thereby towards ahimsā. The passage which Heesterman (1962:23f.) adduces in order to show that the killing was a ritual mistake cannot carry the burden of proof (KS 29.4. MS 4.8.6). For the mistake - the cutting of the victim's head - would have to be corrected by the sacrifice of another victim, the cow for Mitra and Varuna - a rather unbelievable procedure. There is no reason to assume that here killing is redeemed by killing since in the context an opposition between the two victims is not recognizable. It is not demonstrable that the head of the sacrifice' refers to the head of the animal victim.
Before I pursue this question, it may be noted that Heesterman's thesis of the progressing reduction of violence might suit the
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competing sacrifice in TS 2.2.9.7. Somebody whose rival performs a soma-sacrifice in order to harm him should offer a counter sacrifice in which a sacrificial cake is substituted for the cow to Mitra and Varuņa. Here an animal sacrifice is replaced by a vegetal one. But we should not draw any far-reaching conclusions from this passage. It does not amount to a step towards ahimsā since the agnişomīya pašu is not eliminated. It is rather an attempt to foil an expensive sacrifice by a less expensive one.
In the passage quoted by Heesterman we read that the head of the sacrifice was cut off and the sacrificial essence had flowed into the cow (KS 29.4). With the sacrifice of the cow one provides the sacrificer with sacrificial essence. Mitra took what was sacrificed well, and Varuna what was sacrificed badly. Thereby the sacrificer is freed from Mitra and Varuna, and the cow serves to pacify the sacrifice. The text does not identify the head, [225] MS and TS 6.6.7 do not mention it at all. MS ends with the statement that with the sacrifice of the cow the sacrificer puts right everything done incorrectly in the ritual. From this Heesterman concludes that here the idea of killing has been replaced by the concept of the mistake. But there is no indication that what is incorrectly done refers to the animal sacrifice
Possibly TS can lead us to the identification of the head of the sacrifice in this instance. Here the passage ends with the statement that the metres of the sacrificer were exhausted and that the cow is the essence of the metres by whose sacrifice the metres regain their essence. A comparison with TS 2.1.7 (cf. KS 13.8. MS 2.5.7) would seem to confirm the conclusion that the metres are the head of the sacrifice. We read that the vaşat-call split the head of the Gāyatrī. Bịhaspati seized the sap which flowed out first, and it became a white-backed cow; Mitra and Varuņa seized the second part of the sap, and it became a two-coloured cow; the All-gods seized the third part, and it became a many-coloured cow; the fourth part fell on the earth, Bệhaspati seized it, and it became a bull-calf; Rudra seized the blood, it became a fierce red cow. Here we have several bovines which are the sap of the metres; each of them is to gain specific favours from the gods concerned. The general sense seems to be that by sacrificing the cows one brings the sap of the metres in circulation again.
Although I agree with Heesterman insofar as the original decapitation of the victim at the pole - as presupposed by RV 1.162.9 - was replaced by strangulation, I think that the reason for this was not the progressing elimination of violence, but rather a change in
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the relation to blood. It is well-known that the blood is offered to the demons (rākṣasa) and at different occasions also to Rudra and his cohorts (aśvamedha TS 1.4.36. ŚB 13.3.4.2ff. śūlagava PGS 3.8.11). The blood must remain outside the place of sacrifice, quite in contrast to ancient Greek ritual where the altar is swimming in blood. The cause for this change cannot be deduced from our sources, but one can surmise that it is based on a reaction against the customs of inimical neighbours, be they Aryan or non-Aryan. Decapitation is still today the rule in non-Vedic Hindu ritual.
Even if we concede that the use of the head in the sacrifice was abandoned and, as Heesterman (1967, reprinted 1985: 45–58) has argued, procuring the head of the victim posed difficulties for the later ritualists in specific cases, this does not account for the metaphoric use of the 'head of the sacrifice' in the context of the cow for Mitra and Varuņa. This cow is killed in atonement for cutting off the 'head of the sacrifice' identifiable as the metres. There is no indication that here the ritualists replaced the agnişomīya pasu by the metres, and thus took a step toward non-violence.
It should not be overlooked that the Vedic ritualists were quite aware of the violence and cruelty involved in strangulation. Amends had to be made when the victim uttered a cry or beat its breast with its feet (TS 3.1.4.3; 3.1.5.2). The fact that the possibility of long suffering was greater in the case of strangulation than in case of decapitation certainly did not escape the notice of the ritualists.
Heesterman proceeds from his rather shaky basis to turn the development of the ahimsā idea I had reconstructed on its head. He thinks that it started from an originally violent pattern of sacrifice of the ksatriyas [226] which was replaced by a ritualistic system of the brahmins which reduced violence to a minimum. For this purpose he wants to take the argument further back than the ritual ahimsā-theory.
It is not Heesterman's aim to prove that the ritual ahimsā-theory is young, but rather to determine the source in which ahimsā and vegetarianism have united. He believes to have found it in the dīkṣita, the person consecrated for the sacrifice. The state of the dīkṣita lasts 'till ... the sacrificer empties himself of his accumulated power in gifts (dakşiņā) and sacrificial offerings'. In the stereotyped animal and soma sacrifices the dīkņā period is rather short and does not allow extensive activities. Furthermore the dīkṣita must stay in his hut, but he can send out others to beg or rob goods for him which he later distributes as dakṣiņās (cf. Heesterman 1959: 248). In the more complicated rituals of the rājasūya and the aśvamedha the time of the
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dīkşā lasts a whole year and thus allows extensive raids. If the king stayed at home in the classical ritual, this does not mean that he did not lead the raids himself in the pre-classical ritual.
In his article on the vrātyas (1962: 11ff.) Heesterman has adduced plausible reasons for this development: the vrātya is in certain respects the precursor of the dīkşita (Falk 49ff. discusses other aspects of the vrātya problem). The vrātyas give everything they have gained. Also the dīkşita divests himself of at least part of his property. The descriptions of the dīksita are ambivalent: partly they are positive by emphasizing his purity and his power accumulated by asceticism (tapas) which prepares him for a new birth; partly they are negative, emphasizing his impurity and the fact that he can be considered dead - he has, after all, entered the world of the gods. As far as the embryonal state is concerned it should be noted that the food of the dīkṣita consists exclusively of milk.
Another plausible proposal of Heesterman is that what appears to be a violent raid is connected with the annual transhumance which naturally occurred when one's own land was fully grazed and one had to look for fatter pastures to feed one's cattle and to increase the flock. If, then, the dīkṣita or his forerunner, the vrātya, left 'this world' of home for 'that world of the wilderness, he had to adopt a different lifestyle. When he took his herd out with the purpose of increasing it, be it by natural propagation, be it by raiding the neighbours, he had to abstain from slaughtering his own animals for food.
Heesterman (1984: 126) views the classical ritual as an attempt to create a peaceful and orderly world of its own, isolated from the social world. The ritual thus became a rudiment, was no longer in the centre of religious life and was pushed into a rather shadowy marginal existence precariously preserved by learned brahmins on the fringe of the spreading later forms of Hinduism. The tortuous attempts to preserve the ‘authority of the Veda' would attest to that.
The performance of the great Vedic sacrifices was certainly a prerogative of men of affluence and influence. In a way the ritual became a mere merit feast. While originally depending on loot and conquest, it was later continued by the wealthy who distributed the wealth acquired by other means and either knew how to make new fortunes or would withdraw from [227] the world. The privatization of the sacrifices, which from the soma-sacrifice upwards were originally reserved to kings and chieftains, was probably introduced by the brahmins when the economic conditions for the pre-classical ritual had disappeared.
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Heesterman thinks that as soon as the alternation of warlike and peaceful phases was not given any longer the consecrated warrior changed into the harmless dīksita who was at the same time to be the completely peaceful grhastha. From now on the vegetarian rule was valid not only for the dīksita, but also for the grhastha. The first requirement to become a dīkşita and sacrificer is to be a married householder. In this way we can, in Heesterman's opinion, understand how the merger of ahimsā and vegetarianism occurred, and also that the combined rule became a universal one which bound both, the worldly grhastha and the other-worldly sannyāsin.
Heesterman takes this a step further by maintaining that the typical fusion of ahimsā and vegetarianism arose from brahmanic ritual thought, while Buddhists and Jainas, though stressing non-violence, originally had no particular use for vegetarianism'. This is an obvious fallacy. The brahmanic forest hermit, vānaprastha, followed the same principle as the early Buddhists and Jainas: meat was acceptable for him when the animal had not been killed by himself or for him. Heesterman overlooks the fact that the Jainas have become the strictest vegetarians while certainly not all believers in the revelation, the śruti, as interpreted by the brahmins, are vegetarians, nor even all brahmins.
Heesterman's conclusions result in a veritable dilemma: while on the one hand he recognizes the similarity of the dīkşita and the sannyāsin and even sees the dīkşita as the forerunner of the sannyāsin, he at the same time assumes the fusion of dīkşita and grhastha. We must take into consideration that the emergence of renunciation falls into a time when the classical ritual was already developed and the old ritual order was remembered only in semi-historical stories which were hardly understood. We have to reconstruct the older stages with considerable ingenuity and difficulties. Especially since vegetarianism spread among the brahmins only slowly, at least in that form which also prohibits animal sacrifices, it seems improbable that the temporary vegetarianism of the dīkṣita in the sense of the old ritual order was the model for the vegetarian brahmin.
Strict vegetarianism applied originally only to a special category of brahmins to which I shall return later. For the orthodox brahmin there was the rule that killing in sacrifice is no killing just as intercourse with one's wife during the period most favourable for conception (rtu) is no breach of celibacy (M 3.50). The vegetarian tendency spread only slowly, and orthodox scholars resisted for a long time, even to the present, the abolition of the animal sacrifice. In spite of all the evidence the Mahābhārata provides for the
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opposition against the animal sacrifice, this institution has not been completely suppressed until the present day. The logician Viśvanātha (seventeenth century) accused those who prohibited meat-eating to be Buddhists (after Kane III 946). In this he was probably depending on older sources. In the [228] Vişnupurāņa 3.18 we find a story about the fight between gods and demons. First the demons win because they perform the Vedic ritual. Finally Vişnu makes them become heretics (Buddhists and Jainas) by deception. They are being convinced of the absurdity of the opinion that the victim goes to heaven by the objection that then one should also sacrifice one's own father. It is noteworthy that this story occurs in a Vaisnava source, considering that the Vaişņavas have been the champions of vegetarianism among the Hindus for a long time. Also in the Bhāgavatapurāņa 4.26.6 the killing of game for the ancestor worship is still mentioned as permitted or required, significantly enough in a context which condemns the excesses of hunting. The guilty King Purañjara is chopped up in yonder world by the murdered animals (4.28.26).
The Vedānta philosopher Sankara (on Brahmasūtra 3.1.25 and 3.4.28) rejects the opinion that the animal sacrifice is sinful. The Vaisnava philosopher Madhva (twelfth century) is often credited with the introduction of the pistapaśu, the substitute animal made of flour, but in his commentary on Brahmasūtra 3.1.27 he does not consider the Vedic animal sacrifice as sinful. Substitute animals were only introduced by his followers as is apparent from an interpolation in the Kumbakona edition of the Mahābhārata (i crit. ed. 806* after 12.123.15). Borrowing from the Jainas is improbable since they reject the offering of substitutes because it involves the wish to kill (cf. von Glasenapp 84 and *27). In the first quarter of this century there was a dispute between orthodox ritualists and Mādhvas (Parpola and Kashikar in Staal II 247). The poet Śrīharșa (twelfth century) devoted a whole canto of his Naişadhīyacarita to the praise and defence of orthodox brahmanic values, among them the animal sacrifice, even the sacrifice of a cow (17.177; 200).
[232]
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WORKS CITED AND THEIR ABRREVIATIONS
Ks
Sources AB Aitareya-Brāhmaṇa Āp Āpastamba Dharmasūtra ĀPŠS Āpastamba Srautasūtra Baudh Baudhāyana Dharmasūtra BaudhśS Baudhāyana Srautasūtra BAU Brhadāranyaka-Upanisad Bhāgavatapurāņa Chu Chāndogya-Upanișad Gaut Gautama Dharmasūtra GB
Gopatha-Brāhmana Kautalya, Arthaśāstra KB Kausītaki-Brāhmana KapKS Kapişthala-Katha-Samhitā KGS Kāțhaka Gșhyasūtra
Kāthaka-Samhita M
Manusmrti Mbh Mahābhārata MGS Mānava Gșhyasūtra MS Maitrāyaṇī Samhita Pahlavi Texts, ed. J.M. Jamasp-Asana. Bombay, 1897–1913 PGS Pāraskara Grhyasūtra RV Řgveda Sayast-nē-šāyast, ed. and trsl. J.C. Tavadia. Hamburg, 1930 ŚB Satapatha-Brāhmaṇa ŚGS Sankhāyana Gșhyasūtra Śrīharşa, Naiṣadhīyacarita
Taittirīya-Aranyaka TB
Taittirīya-Brāhmana
Taittirīya-Samhita Vadh Vādhūlasūtra, Ed. Caland, Acta Orientalia 4 (1926), 6 (1928)
Vāsistha Dharmasūtra Vişnupurāņa
TA
TS
Vās
Secondary Literature of the Appendices Alsdorf, Ludwig. 1962. Beiträge zur Geschichte von Vegetarismus und
Rinderverehrung in Indien, Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur. Geistes- und sozialwissenschaftliche Klasse
1961 Nr. 6. Wiesbaden. [233]
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le. laris.
Barthiaume, Guy. 1982. Les rôles du mageiros. Etude sur la boucherie, la cuisine
et le sacrifice dans la Grèce ancienne. Leiden. Bhide, V.V. 1979. The Cāturmāsya Sacrifices. Pune. Biardeau, Madeleine and Charles Malamoud. 1976. Le sacrifice dans l'Inde
ancienne. Paris. Boyce, Mary. 1975. A History of Zoroastrianism I. Leiden. Burkert, Walter. 1983. Homo necans. Berkeley-Los Angeles. Chapple, Christopher Key. 1993. Nonviolence to Animals, Earth and Self in
Asian Traditions. Albany. Della Casa, Carlo. 1976. Ahiņsā: Significato e ambito originari della non
violenza. Indologica Taurinensia 3/4.187–196. Detienne, M. et J.-P. Vernant. 1979. La cuisine du sacrifice en pays grec. Paris. Dhabhar, B.N. 1932. The Persian Rivāyats of Hormazyār Frāmarz. Bombay. Doniger, Wendy and Brian K. Smith. 1990. The Laws of Manu. Harmonds
worth: Penguin. Dumont, Louis. 1980. Homo hierarchicus. Chicago-London. Dundas, Paul. 2002. The Jains. London-New York. Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 1956. Nuer Religion. Oxford. Falk, Harry. 1986. Bruderschaft und Würfelspiel. Freiburg/Breisgau. Friedrich, Adolf. 1943. Knochen und Skelett in der Vorstellungswelt
Nordasiens. Wiener Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte und Linguistik 5.189–247. Glasenapp, Helmuth von. 1923. Madhva's Philosophie des Visnuglaubens.
Bonn. Gombrich, Richard. 1988. Theravada Buddhism. A Social History from Ancient
Benares to Modern Colombo. London-New York. Halbfass, Wilhelm. 1991. Tradition and Reflection. Explorations in Indian
Thought. Albany. Heesterman, J.C. 1959. Reflections on the Significance of the dakșiņā. Indo
Iranian Journal. 3.241-258. - 1962. Vrātya and Sacrifice. Indo-Iranian Journal. 6.1-37. - 1984. Non-violence and Sacrifice. Indologica Taurinensia. 12.119–127. - 1985. The Inner Conflict of Tradition. Chicago. - 1989. Somakuh und Danaergabe. XIII. Deutscher Orientalistentag.
Ausgewählte Vorträge. Hsg. v. Einar von Schuler. Stuttgart. Hertz, Robert. 1960. Death and the Right Hand. London. Horsch, Paul. 1966. Die vedische Gathā- und Sloka-Literatur. Bern.
1971. Vorstufen der indischen Seelenwanderungslehre. Asiatische Studien. 25.99–157. Jaini, Padmanabh S. 1979. The Jaina Path of Purification. Berkeley-Los
Angeles. Jettmar, Karl. 1975. Die Religionen des Hindukush. Stuttgart. Kane, V.P. 1930–1966. History of Dharmaśāstra I-V. Poona. Kellens, Jean. 1984. Le verbe avestique. Wiesbaden. (234) Lévi, Sylvain. 1899. La doctrine du sacrifice selon les Brāhmaṇas. Paris. Liiders, Heinrich. 1940. Philologica Indica. Göttingen.
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McDermott, James F. 1989. Animals and Humans in Early Buddhism. Indo
Iranian Journal. 32: 269–280. Meuli, Karl. 1946. Griechische Opferbräuche. Philobolia. Für Peter von der
Mühll, 185–288. Basel. O'Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. 1987. The Good and Evil Shepherd. Gilgul.
Essays ... dedicated to R.J. Zwi Werblowsku, 169–191. Leiden. Oldenberg, Hermann. 1923. Buddha. Sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde.
Stuttgart-Berlin. Proudfoot, lan. 1987. Ahimsā and a Mahābhārata Story. Canberra. Schmidt, Hanns-Peter. 1968. The Origin of Ahimsā. Mélanges d'Indianisme à
la mémoire de Louis Renou. 625-655. Paris. - 1980. The Sēnmurw. Of birds and dogs and bats. Persica 9.1-85. Schmithausen, Lambert. 1985. Buddhismus und Natur. Die Verantwortung
des Menschen für eine bewohnbare Welt im Christentum, Hinduismus und Buddhismus. Hsg. v. Raimondo Panikkar und Walter Strolz, 100–133.
Freiburg/Breisgau. Schreiner, Peter. 1979. Gewaltlosigkeit und Tötungsverbot im Hinduismus.
Angst und Gewalt, ihre Präsenz und ihre Bewältigung in den Religionen. Hsg.
v. Heinrich von Stietencron, 287–308. Düsseldorf. Schwab, Julius. 1886. Das altindische Thieropfer. Erlangen. Smith, Brian K. 1990. Eaters, food and social hierarchy in ancient India.
Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 58.177-208. Spera, Giuseppe. 1982. Notes on Ahimsā. Torino. Staal, Frits. 1983. Agni. The Vedic Ritual of the Fire Altar I-II. Berkeley. Tähtinen, Unto. 1976. Ahimsā. Non-Violence in Indian Tradition. London. Walli, Koshelya. 1974. The Conception of Ahimsā in Indian Thought (According
to Sanskrit Sources). Varanasi. Wezler, Albrecht. 1978. Die wahren 'Speiseresteesser' (Skt. vighasâśin).
Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur. Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Klasse 1978 Nr. 5. Wiesbaden. Williams, R. 1963. Jaina Yoga: A Survey of the Medieval Śrāvakācāras. London. Witzel, Michael. 1987. The case of the shattered head. Studien zur Indologie
und Iranistik. 13–14.363–415. Zimmermann, Francis. 1987. The Jungle and the Aroma of Meats. An
Ecological Theme in Hindu Medicine. Berkeley-Los Angeles.
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Appendix IV PROHIBITION OF FLESH
EATING IN JAINISM
By H.R. Kapadia
Diet plays an important part in human life; for, not only does the physical constitution depend on it but even the mental equanimity and moral achievements are practically governed by it.
This seems to be the reason why Indian philosophers in particular have pronounced their judgement in favour of or against some of the eatables339 and drinks. Side by side, the time 340 when one should take one's meals and the quantity341 to be taken at the time are also specifically mentioned in Jainism. But this is not the place to deal with Jaina diet in all its details. The main object of writing this article is (1) to point out that the verdict of Jainism goes emphatically against flesh-eating and (2) to answer the question whether it is permitted under any special circumstances.
According to Jainism penance (tapas) is of two types: (1) the external and (2) the internal, the former being considered useful in preparing the ground for the latter. 342 The external penance like the
339 In Pravacanasāroddhāra (v. 1411-1412, p. 411), its author Nemicandra Sūri
II mentions 18 articles of food (bhaksya bhojana) current in the world. 340 Jainism advises us to refrain from taking meals after sunset. This rule is
to be scrupulously observed by Jaina saints for whom this is looked upon as the sixth vow, in addition to the five mahāvratas they are bound to
observe. See Daśavaikālikasūtra (IV, 8). 341 32 morsels are considered sufficient for a man and 28 for a woman, each
morsel being in size equal to that of the egg of a hen. See Haribhadra Sūri's comm. (p. 27) to Daśavaikālikasūtraniryukti (v. 47). -No one so far seems to have stumbled over the fact that the Jains, who allegedly never ate meat or eggs, express a mouthful of food just by means of a hen's egg, of all things, instead of a fruit, as could rather be expected. The same holds true for Jacobi's compromise of mamsa and maccha as a metaphorical
expression (see below; WB). 342 Compare the views of Mahātmā Gandhi on the observance of a fast
leading to ātmaśuddhi.
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internal one is of six kinds,343 one of them being rasaparityāga which means that whatever article is likely to lead the senses astray when consumed should be given up. Accordingly liquor (madya), flesh (māņsa), honey, butter etc.344 are to be discarded. From this it will be easily inferred that flesh-eating [233] is against the very spirit of Jainism, especially when it lays stress on ahimsā, samyama and tapas as its three essential features. It will not be amiss to mention in this connection what are called vikrtis. A student conversant with Jainism needs hardly to be reminded that out of the 10 vikytis viz. milk, curds, ghee, oil of sesamum etc., treacle, pakvānna, honey, liquor, flesh and butter, the last four are styled as abhakşya or those that are unfit for consumption. The first six are called bhakşya; but after all, they, too, are vikytis, although less harmful, and should therefore be avoided as far as possible.
Before I actually refer to passages in the Jaina canon and point out how they denounce flesh-eating, I shall have to define the term Taina'. A true 'Jaina' is he who firmly believes that: (1) true God (Paramātman) is one who is completely free from attachment and aversion; (2) that the real guru is he who strictly observes celibacy; and (3) that the real dharma is that which has ahimsā as its chief characteristic. It is a truth generally admitted that conviction is not always immediately followed by action. Hence a Jaina though a firm believer in the principles of Jainism may not be seen actually following them in practice. There is a possibility of such a person being a slave of passions, and hence being addicted even to the worst types of the seven vyasanas345 viz., (1) gambling, (2) flesh, (3) wine, (4) a prostitute, (5) hunting, (6) theft; and (7) debauchery. It may be remarked that so long as such a person considers this conduct to be contrary to the holy precepts of Jainism and sincerely repents for it, that person does not cease to be a Jaina, though such a person may be actually seen taking flesh. But, this does not mean that flesheating goes uncondemned in Jainism. For, there is a higher stage than this for a Jaina layman who takes a vow of refraining from the abhakşyas. 346 The question of a Jaina saint taking flesh never arises, since he is spiritually on a higher plane than even this type of Jaina
343 Cf. the Niryukti (v. 47) to Daśavaikālikasūtra (1, 1). 344 See Vācakavarya Umāsvāti's Bhāşya (p. 238) to Tattvarthādhigamasūtra
(IX, 19) and Siddhasena Gani's comm. (p. 238) to it. 345 'dyūtam ca māmsam ca sura ca veśyā pāparddhi-caurye paradāra-sevā 1 etāni
sapta vyasanāni loke ghorātighoram narakam nayanti 'l' 346 They are 22 in number. See Pravacanasāroddhāra (v. 245, 246; p. 58).

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layman. That is why we find in Sūtrakstānga (II, 2; p. 96), the second anga of the Jainas, Jaina saints styled as 'amajjamāmsāsiņo' or those who do not take madya and māmsa. The seventh verse of the second cūlikā347 of Daśavaikālikasūtra too, supports this statement for it says:
not taking [234] madya and māmsa, free from jealousy, and frequently desisting even from pure (nirvikyti) food, and observing kāyotsarga from time to time, a Jaina saint should be always exerting for svādhyāya. It may be mentioned en passant that svādhyāya is prohibited in a place where there is flesh. 348
From these remarks it must have been realized by the reader that Jainism differs from other religions in its view about flesh-eating. This is further borne out by the fact that it has pointed out in unequivocal terms the penalty one has to pay for eating flesh. For instance, in Sthānānga (IV), the third anga, it is said: an individual amalgamates nāraka-nāma-karman, i.e. becomes doomed to be born in hell, for four reasons, viz.: (1) mahārambha; (2) mahāparigraha; (3) killing a five-organed being; and (4) kūņimāhāra or flesh-eating. This very fact is mentioned in Bhagavatīsūtra (VIII, 9, p. 80), the fifth anga, and in Aupapātikasūtra, (sūtra 56), generally referred to as the upanga of Acārānga. Uttarādhyayanasūtra, too, looked upon as one of the four Mülasūtras, denounces flesh-eating, as could be seen from its ch. V, v. 9-10; ch. VII, v. 6-7 and ch. XIX v. 70–71. These verses are translated in S.B.E. Series (vol. XLV) as under:
'An ignorant man kills, lies, deceives, calumniates, dissembles, drinks liquor and eats meat, thinking that this is the right thing to do. (9)
'Overbearing in acts and words, desirous for wealth and women, he accumulates sins in two ways, just as a young snake gathers dust (both on and in its body). (10)
He is desirous of women and pleasures, he enters on undertakings and business, drinks liquor, eats meat, becomes strong, a subduer of foes. (6)'
'He eats crisp goat's meat, his belly grows, and his veins swell with blood - but he gained nothing but life in hell, just as the ram is only fed to be killed for the sake of a guest. (7)
347 The authorship of this cūlikā is traditionally attributed to Sīman
dharasvāmin, a Tīrthankara existing in Mahāvideha. 348 Cf. Sthānānga (X).
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You like wine, liquor, spirits, and honey; I have been made to drink burning fat and blood. (70)
'Always frightened, trembling, distressed, and suffering, I have experienced the most exquisite pain and misery. (71)
I believe these āgamika citations will suffice to convince a reader that Jainism prohibits flesh-eating. All the same, I shall refer to two incidents connected with the life of Hemacandra Sūri, an encyclopaedic author. When he accompanied Siddharāja Jayasimha (235), a Cālukya king, to Somanātha, he advised the king to give up for the time being wine and meat as a practice of brahmacarya and not on the Jaina ground of its offending against the grand human principle of ahimsā.349 Under the influence of this powerful Sūri, 'a latitudinarian in religious views', Kumārapāla not only gave up meat-eating but promulgated the principle of ahimsā throughout his kingdom. Furthermore, Kumārapāla according to his advice abstained from taking a certain unobjectionable article of food which reminded him of flesh, and in expiation of this sin, he built thirtytwo vihāras. 350 This will show how reprehensible is the idea of flesheating to Jainism.
Reasons for the abstaining from eating flesh:
1
2 3 4
Flesh-eating is inconsistent with the life, a saint is expected to lead. Flesh is very bad vikrti. To eat flesh leads to a birth in hell. Flesh-eating is to be given up as it otherwise interferes with the practice of celibacy.351
Over and above these causes already referred to, a few more, are noted in the Jaina literature e.g.: (i) in Siddhasena Gaņi's comm. (pp. 238–239) to Tattvārthādhigamasūtra (IX, 19); (ii) in Sīlânka Sūri's comm. to Sūtrakṛtānga (II, 6, 38–39); and (iii) in Siddhasena Sūri's comm. to Pravacanasāroddhāra (p. 58).
349 See Syādvādamañjarī (B.S. Series LXXXIII, p. XVI). 350 See Prabandhacintāmaņi (pp. 147-148) published by the Forbes Gujarati
Sabhā. 351 This view is emphasized in Praśnavyākaraṇa (sūtra 27, p. 132), the 10th
anga, as well as in the Bhāşya (p. 47) of Tattvārthādhigamasūtra (VII, 3) and ist comm. (p. 47). Furthermore, in the 10th anga, (sūtra 29, p. 150), flesh-eating is prohibited, while recommending control over the sense of taste, and thus cultivating samyama.

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The dispassionate examination of the above remarks, I am sure will lead us to declare that Jainism does prohibit flesh-eating. Consequently, it remains to be seen, if it allows it as an āpad-dharma, i.e. to say under circumstances when no other food is available to sustain life. I have not come across any passage or quotation in the sacred works of the Jainas which supports this view in an unchallengeable manner.
Let us see if it is quite safe to infer from Haribhadra Sūri's commentary to Daśavaikālikasūtra (V. 1, 73–74) that 'the monks in the days of the Sūtras did not have any objection to eat flesh and fish which were given to them by the house-holders'.
Firstly, it should be borne in mind that Haribhadra remarks [236] that the monks in times of famine, etc. had to take flesh and fish, in order to live; but he does not mention the name of a single monk of that type. On the contrary we come across a passage in Titthogāliya paiņņā, one of the Jain āgamas, which runs as under: when the Madhyadeśa was affected by famine, some saints went away to another province (vişaya) and some who were afraid of violating their holy vows willingly gave up food and drink (and died).
Secondly, other commentators referred to by Haribhadra himself do not interpret the words poggala and aạimisa as meaning flesh and fish but they consider them to signify varieties of fruits.
Thirdly, if flesh-eating were permissible as āpad-dharma will there be any place for samlekhanā,352 recommended in Jainism? Has not Samantabhadra defined sallekhanā as giving up body for the sake of dharma, when it is not possible to abide by dharma in cases like a calamity, a famine, an old age and an incurable disease? Does not Jainism proclaim that body is to be cared for so far as it helps us in observing dharma? What is the earthly use of supporting body by auctioning dharma? Does not a country when its honour is at stake, expect its citizens to preserve it even at the cost of their life?
Lastly in this connection, it may be mentioned that even Prof. Jacobi who had formerly translated māņsa and maccha occurring in Acārānga as flesh and fish has now modified his opinion. As his letter353 is likely to throw much light on this burning question, it is being fully reproduced as under:
352 For its explanation see the Bhāşya (p. 95) of Tattvārthādhigamasūtra
(VII, 17). In the Digambara works we have sallekhaņā in place of samlekhanā, which should not be confounded with suicide as the latter
is denounced in Jainism. 353 I have to thank Mr Motilal Ladhaji for the permission he has given me
to utilize this letter addressed to him.
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Dear Sir,354 Your letter dated 10-1-28 duly at hand. I have carefully gone over the passage of the Achārānga Sūtra II 1.10.6 which refers to the eating of 'meat' and 'fish' by Jaina monks or nuns. The result at which I arrived forms the subject of this letter.
Let me begin with the origin of the controversy in about AD 1900. In my translation of the Achārānga Sūtra (S.B.E., vol. XXII, Oxford, 1884) I have rendered in the passage under consideration, mamsa and maccha by 'meat and 'fish'; for, such is the original [237] or primary meaning (mukhyārtha) of māmsa and matsya. The Jainas took offence at this rendering and complained about it to Professor Max Müller, the editor of the S.B.E. Series.
In order to justify my translation, I tried to make it probable that in ancient times the prohibition of animal food may not have been so rigorous as it notoriously was in more modern times. But my suggestion has not been accepted, and Mr Khimji Hirji Kayani communicated to me the following explanation of the passage in question by the high priest of the Jain community of Bombay:
'A monk or a nun on a begging tour is prohibited from receiving conserve of fruits containing a large portion of bark or an exterior covering of a fruit, and if inadvertently received then the monk or nun should bury underground the remaining portion of such conserve which cannot be eaten,' etc. A similar explanation was given to me by several yatis on my visit to India in the cold season of 1913–14. I duly took notice of their interpretation which I promised to publish when a second edition of my translation of the Achārānga Sūtra should be issued, but I refrained from further discussing or disputing the point, and there the matter rested.
Now the point to be decided is whether māmsa and matsya can be proved to have the meaning conserve of fruits assigned to them by the orthodox interpreters of the
354 See also the article by munis Nemivijaya and Anandasāgara 2007: 12ff.
with a Sanskrit letter by Jacobi on p. 20f. and their reply to Jacobi on p. 22f. On my request for a copy of this letter of Jacobi Muni Sīlacandravijaya answered me that the letter could not be found (WB).
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passage under consideration. In proof of this assertion no evidence has been brought forward either from Sanskrit Literature or from glossaries (kosas).355 It is true that matsyaphalā and māmsa-phalā are names of certain plants, but not the words matsya and māmsa by themselves, and even that meaning would not suit the requirement of our case. Mamsa and maccha occur only once more in the Pindesanā (1,9,3) and there they must be taken in their primary sense of 'meat' and 'fish.' That passage has reference to a meal which is being prepared for a guest or a sick person. After the usual opening words we read massam vā maccham vā majjijjamānam pehāe. The attribute majjijjamānam being fried or roasted shows that by mamsa and maccha 'conserve of fruits' cannot be meant. [238] The householder who makes those preparations for the reception of a guest, need not be a Jaina layman; it is, therefore, not to be wondered at that he has meat or fish roasted for the guest. It will thus be seen that the exegetical rules of philology oblige us to attribute to the words mamsa and maccha, in the doubtful passage, their primary meaning 'meat' and 'fish.' But how are we to reconcile this result with the prohibition of animal-food? Even if it be granted that this prohibition had not been as strictly observed of old as in historical times, still we cannot suppose that at any time a Jaina monk should explicitly admit that under certain conditions he was ready to accept as alms 'meat' and 'fish'; for, that would be the meaning of the passage if understood in its literal sense. I think I can suggest a way out of the dilemma, without either putting an inadmissible practice to the ancient Jaina monks. For, two Sanskrit passages, one in the Mahābhāṣya of Patañjali and the other in the Tātparya-tīkā of Vācaspatimisra seem to me to throw some light on the quotation in
355 In order that a learned reader may argue out this case, I may state the
following particulars: (i) In Susrutasamhitā (p. 642) we have: 'cūta-phale 'paripakve keśara
māmsāsthi-majja na prthag drśyante.' (ii) Carakasamhitā (p. 1028) remarks: 'kharjūra-māmsānyatha nārikelam.' (iii) Hemacandra Sūri observes in his Anekārthasamgraha: 'tiktāristā
katur-matsya cakrangi sakulādani.' (iv) Prajñāpanā declares that thereare several plants, etc. which bear the
names of animals.
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hand. In discussing a Vārttika ad Pāṇini (III, 3, 9) Patañjali illustrates the meaning of nāntarīyakatva by the following example: kaścit māmsārthī matsyān sa-sakalān sa-kaņsakān āharati nāntarīyakatvāt. sa yāvad ādeyam tāvad ādāya sakalakantakāny utsrjati. evam ihậpi', etc. (The same passage is repeated verbatim in the Mahābhāşya ad IV. 1, 92).
Vācaspatimiśra in commenting on Nyāyasūtra IV 1, 54 says: 'tasmān māmsārthīva kantakān uddhrtya māmsam aśnann ānartham kaņțaka-janyam āpnotīty evam prajñāvān duḥkham uddhrtyendriyādi-sādhanam sukham moksyate. Patañjali and Vācaspatimiśra are separated by nine centuries: during all this time (and probably much longer) the standard example of an object containing the substance which is wanted in intimate connection (nāntarīyaka) with much that must be rejected, was 'fish' of which the flesh may be eaten, but the scales and bones must be taken out. By being generally understood in this way, and having become proverbial, as it were, the expression 'fish with many bones' came to be properly used, I assume, to denote metaphorically any substance similarly constituted. In this metaphorical sense, I believe, bahu-atthiyeņa mamseņa vā maccheņa vā bahukanthaena has been used in the passage of Achārānga Sūtra under consideration. A close examination of that passage is very much in favour of my supposition. It runs thus:
se bhikkhū vā jāva samāṇe siyā ņam paro bahu-atthieņa mamsena macchena vā bahu-kanthaeņa uvanimantejjā Tāusanto samaņā abhikaňkhasi bahu-atthiyam mamsam padigāhettae | etappagāram nighosam soccā [239] nisamma se puvvām-eva āloejjā lāuso ti vā bhaiņi ti vā no khalu kappai me bahu-atthiyam massam padigāhettae | abhikaňkhasi me dāum jāvatiyam tāvatiyam poggalam dalayāhi, mā atļhiyāim 1 etc. The layman asks the monk whether he will accept 'meat with many bones'. Now if the alms-giver had actually offered meat, the answer of the monk would of a certainty have been: No, I am no flesh-eater. Instead of this refusal he says: 'It is against our rules to accept "meat with many bones": "if you desire to make me a gift, give me as much of the substance as you like, but not the bones." It is worthy of remark that the monk makes use of the (popular) phrase 'meat with many bones' when declining
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the offer, but not when he states that he will accept; there he uses not a metaphorical expression, but the direct designation poggala, substance. This change of appellation is due to the consciousness that the first expression is metaphorical and open to misunderstanding.
This meaning of the passage is, therefore, that a monk should not accept as alms any substance of which only a part can be eaten and a great part must be rejected. The same principle governs the preceding paragraphs of the 10th uddesao. In 4 some such substances are mentioned by name viz. different parts of sugarcane, etc. and in 5 we find mamsa and maccha which expression, if I am right, comprises all the remaining substances of a similar description which have not been mentioned in the preceding paragraph.
Bonn, Yours faithfully,
14 February 1928. H. JACOBI
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