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A. CHAKRAVARTI :
beginning of the work, in the chapter on dharma, the author gives this as his own view that it is far better and more virtuous to abstain from killing and eating any animal than to perform 1000 sacrifices. This one single verse is enough to point out that the author would not have acquiesced in any form of such sacrificial ritualism. The verse is nothing more than the paraphrase of the Sanskrit words ahimsā paramo dharmaḥ. I was surprised to see this same verse quoted by a Saivaite Tamil scholar to prove that the author had as his religion Vedic sacrificial ritualism.
In the same section devoted to vegetarian food the author distinctly condemns the Bauddha principle of purchasing meat from the butcher. Buddhists who offer lip service to the doctrine of ahimsa console themselves by saying that they are not to kill with their own hands but may purchase meat from the slaughter-house. The author of the Kuraļ in unmistakable terms points out that the butcher's trade thrives only because of the
1. The relevant kural reads :
Avi-sorind -äyiram vët tali-onran
uyirsegutt-unņāmai nanru (1-26-9). ‘Than thousand rich oblations, with libations rare,
Better the flesh of slaughtered beings not to share'. (G.U. Pope).
2. The relevant kural reads :
Tinar-porut tur-kollad-ulageņin yürumi
vilai-pporuļļāl-unraruvür-il (1-26-6). "We eat the slain', you say, 'by us no living creatures die; Who'd kill and sell, I pray, if none come there the flesh to buy?' (G.U. Pope).
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