Madhuvidya

Author(s): S D Laddu, T N Dharmadhikari, Madhvi Kolhatkar, Pratibha Pingle
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 563

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M. A. MEHENDALE
small measure to the stopping of the killing of animals either for sacrifice or for food. Asoka was no doubt very tolerant towards other religions. But he did not accept any compromise on the issue of offering animals in sacrifices. In his very first rock edict he proclaimed: "no animal shall be killed here for being offered in a sacrfice". As regards meat-eating as food, he made a very drastic cut in his own kitchen in order to show to the people that example was better than precept.
Not that the good qualities of meat, both as tasty food and as a source of quick nourishment were simply lost sight of by those who favoured vegetarianism. They admitted that nothing can take the place of meat which was invaluable in the treatment of those who suffered from injuries, were emaciated, or grown weary by long journey. But, inspite of this, eating meat was objected to by these people on ethical grounds. They said nobody can be considered more mean and more cruel than the one who wished to increase his own flesh by eating that of someone else (Mbh, 13: 117.6-10). An echo of this reasoning is heard in the fifth Pillar Edict of Asoka where he says: "one should not nourish oneself by eating a living being (jivena jivo no pusitaviye)." It may be noted that the words used by Aśoka in his edicts are vihimsã and avihimså and not himsä and ahimsä.
Some scholars have observed that the Hindu aversion to killing animals for sacrifice is not to be traced either to Buddhism or to Jainism. They feel, and on quite good grounds, that as far as the Jains are concerned their main concern was to wage a comprehensive struggle against the Brahmanical religion and Brahmanical arrogance on the whole. Their attacks on Brahmanical sacrifice formed only a part of it and hence the main emphasis, at least in the beginning, was in no way on ahimsă. They interpret this fact as suggesting that Jainism-and the same holds good a fortiori also for Buddhism-was not the real source of ahimsā which is supposed to have been later transferred to Brahmanism. They argue that the origin of the aversion to killing animals in sacrifices must be sought in the pre-Aryan, or what we may in a sense call the "original Indian", elements. It has already been shown that such non-Aryan characteristics of Hinduism as phallus worship or the sacredness attached to the pippala tree have to be traced to the pre-Aryan Indus culture. Similarly, ahimsa, or more especially a taboo on killing animals for religious practices, is to be
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