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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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