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nine, and a professed Buddhist was at liberty to use them as food,
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In this connection it will be interesting to note that the Buddha's personal teachings were originally divided into two categories "gradual or progressive" and 'instantaneous'. The former is said to have contained all those scriptures which incorporated the Buddha's early teaching and the rules and regulations which constituted the Vinaya-pitaka. In these he is said to have suited his sermons and precepts to the moral and spiritual attainments and requirements of his audience, imposing mild restrictions as regards life and conduct on those who were low in the scale. At a later period, he is said to have taught higher truths and inculcated a stricter purity and more thorough self-denial. Thus, in the beginning he seems to have sanctioned the use of flesh as an ordinary article of food by his own example and implied permission. But when he saw that the monks were misusing the sanction by begging for beef and mutton, asking to have animals killed for them, and eating as daily food flesh which should only be taken in exceptional circumstances, he imposed the above-mentioned restrictions. The instantaneous teaching', on the other hand, were not guided by circumstances and environments. They revealed sublime spiritual truths to be comprehended and accepted at once by higher minds, taught for these a morality absolute and universal and instituted for the professed desciples the rules which were to be of eternal and unchanging obligation. The 'gradual teaching' is taken to be co-extensive with the Hinayana system whereas the 'instantaneous' with the Mahayana the scriptures of which prohibit absolutely the use of flesh of any kind as food particularly by the Buddhist monks. According to them animal food retards the spiritual developemet of one who eats it and entails evil consequences in the lives to come. The result of this teaching was that some Mahāyānist Buddhists have been quite strict in abstaining, not only from all kinds of flesh food, but also from milk and its products. The followers of Devadattà, a cousin and rival of the Buddha, the Ajivikas of Mankhali Gosāla and several other Śramana sects were also strict vegetarians. This
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