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HISTORY OF VEGETARIANISM IN INDIA
on it. That Buddhism was a reaction against late Vedic ideas would appear from the anātman-doctrine which can hardly be anything but a criticism of the ātman-doctrine.
In the brahmanic sources we can follow the evolution of the ideas of ahimsā and renunciation, in Buddhism and Jainism they are there right from the beginning, it is true, in opposition to Vedic ritualism, but a ritualism which had already been superseded by the meta-ritualists who interiorized the sacrifice. The Buddhists and Jainas could do what the meta-ritualists could not: they could deny the validity of the Veda whose rituals were kept alive by the representatives of the karmakāņda.
My article has partly found approval, partly been received with reserve. Della Casa follows my interpretation nearly to the letter. Schreiner (302 n. 23) thinks that Della Casa differs from me in assuming that ahimsā was practised not because one gave up atonement, but because one doubted the possibility of atonement; this is wrong since I had stated exactly the [220] latter view (650; 652). Spera, who deals mainly with ahimsā in the Mahābhārata, the Purāņas, and in Jainism, refers to my work without criticism. But he thinks that the way of the Jainas is parallel to that of the Hindus, but different. The Jainas are supposed to be pre-Aryan, animistic and sedentary, the Hindus polytheistic (with magical tendencies) and nomadic. This view is without foundation just as similar ones already mentioned. I have shown that there are animistic ideas in the Veda; moreover, animism and polytheism do not exclude each other. At the time when the ideas we are concerned with arose, the Vedic people were not nomadic any longer.
Wezler (87 n. 252), who seems to agree with my main arguments, doubts that the 'magico-ritual fear of destroying life in any form' was the only root of strict ahimsā and the asceticism resulting from it. He especially objects to the 'monocausal interpretation. Such an interpretation was not intended, and I have not claimed that asceticism is derived from ahimsā. After all, ahimsā is only part of the ascetic practices, and asceticism existed long before the development of the strict ahimsā-doctrine. My work had the aim to follow the development of the idea of ahimsā in the sources extant and to abstain from general hypotheses as far as possible. I do not at all exclude the possibility that the further investigation of the complex of renunciation and asceticism can uncover other aspects which contributed to the spread of ahimsā. So general a criticism as that of Wezler is not very helpful since there is not even a suggestion where the other causes might be sought.
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