History of Vegitarianism and Cow Veneration in India

SR No.: 006921
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Willem B Bollee
Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd
Publication Year: 2010
Total Pages: 186
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 110

APPENDIX II
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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