Idea of Ahimsa and Asceticism in Ancient Indian Tradition

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

Page 38

AHMSĀ, ASCETICISM ....
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the ahimsa is exlicitly enjoined, the meat-eating is absolutely prohibited, and the vegetarianism is highly praised. The Vedic rituals are here not condemned, but much weight is given to the ahimsa which had earlier played a predominent role in renouncers' life. A person never eating the meat, enjoys as much the fruits of his meritorious karma, i.e. ahimsa, as the other persons enjoy by performing every year one aśvamedha sacrifice continuously for nearly one hundred years:
varse varse 'svamedhena yo yajeta satam sa mah / maņsani ca na khaded yas tayoḥ punya-phalam (vs.53).
samam //
The word : mamsa - meat - means : that (animal) will eat me in the next world, whose meat I eat here. The wise men pronounce that to be the meat's nature of being meat" (vs.55, see also above 2.a and Lommel, p.220.).
In some texts, the ahimsa is considered as a tapas and also one of the means for removing sins (cf. BDS 3.10.13: ahimsa satyam ... iti tapamsi / and it is stated that the soul is purified by the ahimsa (BDS 1.5.8.2). The wise man seeing all beings in his self is not perplexed. He should see the self everywhere (cf. ĀDS 1.8.23).
Generally most of the rules as laid down in the dharmasatras and in the smrti texts for the brahmins are framed keeping in view the ideal life of the renouncers whose main aim was to attain the knowledge of the self. BĂ. Up. (4.4.6) declares that the karmas - whether good or evil - are the main source for the cycle of births and deaths. Man should strive after the knowledge of the self. "The brahmin knows it by reciting the Veda, by sacrifice, by liberality, by tapas, by fasting. Having known this, he becomes a silent ascetic (muni). In search of him, the ascetics wander ahead. Both, what he had done and what not, do not burn him. The knower of this sees the self in his self and everywhere. His world is the world of brahman." (BĀ. Up. 4.4.22-23).