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HISTORY OF VEGETARIANISM IN INDIA
I
In order to find out how and in which context the uncompromising absolute value of ahimsā emerged, I adopted the same method Alsdorf (17ff.) had applied in separating the three historical layers to be distinguished in Manu's rules on meat-eating. In the first stage there is no prohibition, in the second, prohibition in daily life but obligation in the ritual, and in the third, absolute prohibition and advocacy of pure vegetarianism.
Regarding ahimsā we come to the following result:
1. The rule that ahimsā belongs to the duties of all four classes (M 10.63) is not known to sources older than Kautalya (1.3.13); on Vasiştha 4.4 cf. Alsdorf 29.
2. Vegetarianism as expression of ahiņsā (M 5.45-56). This may be less a rejection of the Vedic animal sacrifice than rather the recommendation of sannyāsin-like conduct. In the older sources there is no mention of consistent vegetarianism.
3. Vegetarianism with the exception of sacrificial animals (M 5.31–44). Killing in sacrifice was considered as non-killing since the creator has created the animals for sacrifice and the sacrifice serves the whole world (39). Himsā in ritual is considered to be ahimsā (44). Plants and animals (209] killed in sacrifice attain higher existences (40). The older legal texts do not mention the restriction of meateating to the sacrifice (on Vas 4.6 cf. Alsdorf 23f.). But in the last section of the Chāndogya-Upanișad (8.15) – which is probably a very late addition - we read:
He who has returned from the house of his teacher, established himself in his own household, raised lawabiding students, concentrated his senses on the self (ātman), did not injure any living being except on ritual occasions, enters the world of brahman and is not reborn.
This passage appears to be a polemic against the doctrine according to which rebirth can only be overcome by the renouncer who has given up the material sacrifice which yields only transitory fruits.
Since repeatedly meat-eating in the ritual is opposed to the illegal or random meat-eating (cf. M 5.33; 36; 38), the question arises whether in ancient India animals were slaughtered for food without consecration. According to the interpretation of Keith and Heesterman (1962: 19) the different ways of tying the animal to the sacrificial pole (TS 6.3.6.3) reflect the difference of sacral and profane
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