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APPENDIX III
killing. I do not think that this is cogent since it is also possible to assume a difference between grhya- and srauta-ritual. Misgivings regarding the assumption that random killing was common arise also from the fact that in hunting the idea of sacrifice is involved. In Mbh 1.109.13 the Rși Agastya, who is on a hunt in connection with a great sacrificial session (sattra), sprinkles the wild animals and dedicates them to the gods. In Mbh 3.37.41 the Pāņdavas go hunting with pure arrows and sacrifice to the fathers, gods and brahmins; in 3.79.8 they kill many kinds of wild animals for the sake of the brahmins. The opinion of Zimmermann (180ff.) that on the whole meat was consecrated seems to be justified.
It could of course be objected that in a Buddhist Jātaka (no. 199; cf. Alsdorf 61) and in Kautalya's Arthaśāstra (2.26) the slaughter of animals is mentioned without any reference to consecration. Furthermore, also Asoka, in the first rock edict, does not say anything about the consecration of the animals slaughtered for the imperial kitchen. He even explicitly prohibits the sacrifice of animals in the residence. Since, however, the three animals (two peacocks and one antelope), which were still slaughtered at the time of the edict, were probably connected with a dynastic cult (cf. Schmidt 1980: 48), a consecration of some kind probably took place.
After all, it would be surprising if in India unceremonial slaughter had been widespread while it was taboo in related cultures.
In classical Greece meat sold on the market had to come from animals sacrificed to a deity (Detienne-Vernant 11. Barthiaume 65).
The Zoroastrians have similar rules. He who eats unconsecrated meat will be delivered to the demons (Pahlavi Texts p. 126 32–33); the hairs of an unlawfully slaughtered animal become tips of arrows killing the slaughterer (Sāyast-nē-šāyast 10.8); if the head of the animal is not consecrated, the god Hõm will not allow the soul to pass the bridge of the judge to paradise (Persian Rivayats of Hormazyar Framarz, trsl. Dhabhar, 264). Boyce (150) mentions that certain religious rites were prescribed at the killing even of wild animals without, however, giving the source of this rule. [210]
I think it is improbable that we can deduce a general toleration of random slaughter from the lack of reference to the consecration of the victim in certain Indian sources. Unlawful slaughter will certainly have occurred, but the reaction will have been similar to what we know from the African Nuer: bad conscience and shame (Evans-Pritchard 263f.).
4. For the brahmin there are many rules which depend on ahimsā. Thus he is to earn his living only in professions which do not or do
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