Book Title: History of Vegitarianism and Cow Veneration in India
Author(s): Willem B Bollee
Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd

Previous | Next

Page 109
________________ HISTORY OF VEGETARIANISM IN INDIA 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 96 For Personal & Private Use Only Jain Education International www.jainelibrary.org

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186