Idea of Ahimsa and Asceticism in Ancient Indian Tradition

Author(s): Bansidhar Bhatt
Publisher: B J Institute

Page 15

2. AHIMSA, ASCETICISM AND EARLY
VEDIC RITUALS
(a) Ritualists :
We will now deal with the early Vedic ritual text, and their interpretations offered by some Vedic scholars.
The killing and injuring of animals remained in centre of sacrificial rituals of the Vedic period. The ritual performers believed that trees, plants, and elements like water, earth, etc. possess spirits or souls, just as men and animal', and that an act of killing any creature in this world results in an inverted process in the world beyond, where the victim itself in turn takes the revenge and kills the killer after his death2. Ideas behind the killing of animals and the ill-fate of the killer in the "other" world belong to ethnic cultures. They are taboos. They should not be connected with the later ahimsa ideal. The earlier belief is also evident in MS:
mam sa bhakṣayita 'mutra yasya mamsam ihådmyaham / etan mamsaya mamsatvam pravadanti manişinaḥ // (5.56)
mamsa" (meat) means: mam me, sa (paśu, animal) that on will eat in the next world, whose meat I eat here. The wise men pronounce that to be the meat's nature of being "mam-sa" ("me that one will eat") - meat." (also Lommel, p.220)
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The Vedic ritualists, therefore, employed some formulas in order to avoid ill-fate they would meet with in the next world, on account of the killing of animals in sacrifices. The SkhB (11.3) describes the Soma sacrifice in which animals are offered. Here, the triṣṭubh meter identified with bala and virya is used before and after the bṛhati (large) and the usnis (small) meters of the morning prayer. This suggests that the cattle remaining in the middle, do not run away from the sacrifice due to the bala force and the virya strength used around them. The hotṛ priest reciting the prayer catches hold of the cattle with the 1. Cf. Keith. pp. 71 fol. for spirits; p. 185 for tree-spirits; p.277 for cornspirits; pp.63-64 for plant-spirits.
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2. Cf. MS 5.34, 5.56; SB 11.6.1.3: te hocur ittham vā ime asmån amusmiml loke asacanta tan vayam iha pratisacamaha iti /; SkhB 11.3:... yatha ha va asmim! loke manuṣyaḥ pasun aśnanti... evam eva amusmiml loke paśavo manusyan aśnanti.../; see also Schmithausen2 pp.38-39.