Yasastilaka and Indian Culture

SR No.: 001609
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur
Publication Year: 1968
Total Pages: 566
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Story, Literature, & Culture
File Size: 16 MB

Page 391

972
YASASTILAKA AND INDIAN CULTURE
flesh-eating. In Yasastilaka VII. 24 the Buddhists are mentioned first among certain communities who recommend the eating of flesh.
The quarrel of the Jainas and the Buddhists over the question of using flesh as an article of food goes back to very early times. "IQ the time of Buddha there was in Vaiśāli a wealthy general named Sīha who was a convert to Buddhism. He became a liberal supporter of the Brethren and kept them constantly supplied with good flesh food. When it was noised abroad that the bhikshus were in the habit of eating such food specially provided for them the Tirthikas made the practice a matter of angry reproach." The Master thereupon announced to the Brethren “the law that they were not to eat the flesh of any animal which they had seen put to death for them, or about which they had been told that it had been killed for them, or about which they had reason to suspeot that it had been slain for them. But he permitted to the Brethren as "pure' (that is, lawful) food the flesh of animals the slaughter of which had not been seen by the bhikshus, not heard of by them, and not suspected by them to have been on their account. In the Pali and Ssu-fen Vinaya it was after a breakfast given by Siha to the Buddha and some of the Brethren, for which the carcase of a large ox was procured, that the Nirgranthas reviled the bhikshus and Buddha instituted this new rule declaring fish and flesh pure in the three conditions. The animal food now permitted to the bhikshus ......... was tersely described as "unseen, unheard, unsuspected' .........” Two more kinds of animal food were later “declared lawful for the Brethren, viz. the flesh of animals which had died a natural death, and that of animals which had been killed by a bird of prey or other savage creature."3 This was the Hinayānist position
1 जैनमेकं मतं मुक्त्वा द्वैताद्वैतसमाश्रयो । मागौं समाश्रिताः सर्वे सर्वाभ्युपगमागमाः ॥ वामदक्षिणमार्गस्थो मत्री
T:
I rmat: İyTETEENTH: | The Ms. A remarks H Haicafta 17:1 मांसमाशयति बौद्धः । जीवहोमादिक्रियाज्ञानप्राप्तो विप्रः। 2 931#THIET rata eto. A little further on, Somadeva says that a king named
Saurasena, although he had taken a vow to abstain from flesh-eating, became addicted to it, being misled by the doctrines of the Veda, medical lore and the Advaita doctrine (zania Hahlenha:). The Advaitamata obviously refers to the Buddbist view of flesh-eating. Watters: On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India 629-645 A. D., Vol. I, p. 55. Manichaeism, which prohibited the slaughter of animals, permitted the Hearers, as distinguished from the Elect, to eat flesh food when it had been slain by others. Cf. Wand: A History of the Early Church, p. 141. The Manichaean Elect and Hearers corresponded pretty well to monks and seculars. Babylon was the birth-place of Manichaeism, and Manes, the founder of the new religion about the middle of the third century, was brought up in the sect of the Mugthasila, who laid special stress on abstinence from flesh, wine and women, Kidd: A History of the Church, Vol. I, p. 50€.