History of Vegitarianism and Cow Veneration in India

Author(s): Willem B Bollee
Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd

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HISTORY OF VEGETARIANISM IN INDIA
air, to act as an arbitrator. He inquires cautiously which view is supported by either party and then takes the side of the gods. Thereupon the rṣis curse him to be swallowed up by the earth, but he is freed later from the curse through incessant devotion to VisnuNārāyaṇa. The story is narrated once again in Mbh. XIV 91 but differently: here the rṣis protest against an animal sacrifice by Indra, which they characterise as sinful because himsa is not dharma.123 They call on Indra to offer three-year-old seeds. He declines and they dispute whether 'movable or immovable' (jangama or sthavara, whether animals [40] or plants) are to be sacrificed.
Finally with the concurrence of Indra, Vasu is questioned. He gives the unreflected answer that one should offer whatever is available, and disappears into the underworld.124
This version, which is not Viṣṇuist and with Indra in the main role gives the impression of being ancient, has forgotten the main point: namely that it is a question of a dispute about the meaning of the word aja. Instead of that, it has retained that which substantiates first of all the etymological interpretation of a-ja as 'non-germinating (seeds)' and what is missing in the Vişnuist setting: the assertion that it is question of three-year-old seeds which are, therefore, no longer capable of germinating and hence are lifeless. 125 That this is the meaning of the triennial period is confirmed by the Jains, who have seized upon this legend as highly suitable for their ends, have inserted it into their universal history and have expanded it into the 'story of the genesis of the animal sacrifice'.126 The alterations which
no animal is allowed to be slaughtered. Visnu himself proclaims this in Mbh. XII 327,73 (Deussen 1922: 791): The present age, known as the Kṛta, has dawned as the best age; in this age sacrificial animals are not allowed to be killed; and so it is' (idam kṛtayugam nama kālaḥ śreṣṭaḥ pravartitaḥ / ahimsya yajña-paśavo yuge 'smin, na tad anyathā). Already in the next age, the Tretayuga, in which one quarter of the fourfold consummate dharma has disappeared, animals are consecrated and killed in sacrifice (not to mention then, what is not expressed, in our Kaliyuga, which has only one quarter of the dharma!).
123 Vs 14: nayam dharma-kṛto yajño, na himsa dharma ucyate.
124 Vs 22f.: yathôpanitair yaṣṭavyam iti provāca pārthivaḥ // evam uktva sa nṛpatiḥ pravivesa rasatalam.
125 Agastya also offers triennial seeds in Mbh. XIV 92 when Indra withholds rain from him in connection with a twelve-year sacrifice. The ascetics gathered with him highly extol ahimsa and pray to him to propagate such ahimsa in sacrifice (vs 34: etam ahimsam yajñeṣu bruyas tvam satatam, prabho). Why the seeds offered are triennial is not expressed here either.
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