Book Title: Jainthology Author(s): Ganesh Lalwani Publisher: Jain Bhawan PublicationPage 95
________________ sages practising penances in forests and ascetical aśramas or hermitages where celebrated teachers also taught various subjects to residential students, young as well as grown up, India's population consisted not only of the civilised Indus Valley people and the semi-civilised Vedic Aryan immigrants but also of a large number of others of different racial stocks and cultural levels. The Māgadhans appear to have developed a culture of their own which rivalled that of the Indo-Aryans around 800 B.C. All old lands again are inhabited by primitive aboriginals, among whom the propitiation of deities, mostly malevolent, by offering them slaughtered animals' blood and flesh is as common a religious practice as for instance is the worship of snakes and trees, stocks and stones. The ancient Jews and Arabs, what to speak of the Aryans, and the ancient inhabitants of Greece and Rome, even after attaining a fairly respectable degree of civilisation, were accustomed to kill animals for sacrifice to deities. The Säktas and Tantriks of India have their own elaborate occult explanation of how the life force, as represented by the living, i.e., gushing blood freshly shed, of animals offered in sacrifice to deities, redounds to the benefit of the sacrificer by the magical influence of the mantras uttered by himself or by the priest who acts as an intermediary between him and the deity. Many beliefs and practices of the primitive mind survive among civilised people, though in rationalised or disguised forms, sometimes highly so, say modern psychologists and sociologists. If we examine analytically many of our Hindu religious notions or social practices, we shall not fail to discover the truth of this theory of the scientists. Coming to historical times we find in Buddhist and Jaina scriptures many references to hunters, fowlers, butchers and fishermen, shops where meat, fish and egg preparations were sold, and to the food habits of the people as being largely non-vegetarian. Stories told in the Buddhist Vinaya Pitka report many instances of Buddha and his disciples having been served with meat dishes when invited to meals in the houses of well-to-do people. Buddhists were not averse to eating nonvegetarian food provided the three condition, same as in the Jaina Vow of non-killing, were satisfied, viz., that one himself should not kill, he 66 / JAINTHOLOGYPage Navigation
1 ... 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294