Idea of Ahimsa and Asceticism in Ancient Indian Tradition

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

Page 54

REFORM RELIGIONS....
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themselves have not killed any animal or fish. Even the Buddhist monks and nuns believed in animism, but they are not so strict and rigid as the Jainas. Also, the ahimsa is not the main teaching of Buddhism (for the details about Buddhist animism and ahimsa, see Schmithausen-2.pp.5 fol. and p.58, fn. 326).
Due to this fact, the Mahavira had instructed his disciple Siha to fetch the meat of a cock killed by a cat, but not the two pigeons specially prepared for himself on demand (uddesiya, see above 4.h; also for different canonical sources, see Doctrine. S 154). Exactly in the same way monks and nuns accept normal food when it is not uddesiya - cooked by laypersons only for them, but it should be cooked by laypersons only for themselves but not for monks or nuns.
The uddesiya food of the Jainas is the same as uddissa-kata of the Buddhists (for minor differences, see Schmithausen-1. pp.70 fol.). This condition implies that an injurious activity (killing an animal for meat, boiling the water, cooking the food, etc.) of laypersons is nothing less than an act of non-injury, ahimsa for monks or nuns. Laypersons take responsibility of injuring the animals for letting monks and nuns live a life with an ideal of ahimsa (cf. Wezler-1. p.105) ! As a matter of fact, this is not an ethical but a magicoritualistic taboo which has been adopted in Jainism and Buddism from the early Vedic ritualism. In it, the officiating priest obliges the dikṣita - sacrificer by taking the officiating priest obliges the dikṣita sacrificer by taking the responsibility on himself of killing the animal in sacrifice and consuming first the meat. The dikṣita consumes it afterwards, and avoids an offence of killing the animal and saves himself from the law of retribution and sin. The Priest has to consume the meat, his refusal to do is met with dire consequences, according to the Manusmrti (cf. Heesterman-R. p. 148). Similarly, in receiving a guest, the host should offer a cow to serve him the beef. The guest orders its killing and accepts the sin incurred due to that. The host can consume the beef after feeding the guest, and thus saves himself from the sin in killing a cow (see belów 6.a; also: Alsdorf-1. p.18). It is called nṛ-yajna (cf. Wezler-1. pp.80 fol.; for differenct citations from early source, see also Wezler-1. pp. 105 fol.). According to Manu, munis (silent ascetics) also accepted meat and lived generally on meat of animals that were killed by some beasts (see Schmidt-1. p. 638). The vanaprasthas were allowed to eat meat of animals when they had been killed by wild beasts or other persons (cf. GDS. 3.31; BDS. 3.3.6).