Siddhachalam NJ 1990 04 Mahavir Jayanti

Author(s): Siddhachalam NJ
Publisher: USA International Mahavir Jain Mission Siddhachalam

Page 38

AHIMSA ANIMAL LIFE
AND
VEGETARIANISM
DR. UNTO TAHTINEN WRITER, THINKER, UNESCO SCHOLAR FORMER PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
A. DHARMASASTRAS AND PURANAS
The highest duty according to the Santi-Parva is to secure the happiness (sukha) of all creatures. The Hindus feel very strongly that animal life ought to be preserved, especially in the case of the cow. In the Rigveda the cow is frequently called aghnya, one deserves not to be killed'. According to the Purancic lore those wicked people who despise the cow do not go upward.
Hunting (mrgayya), too, involves some sin even for a ksatriya, but it is possible to destroy the sin by dedication (tapas) and by surrender to God (mat-upasraya). However, according to a story told in the Varaha-Purana, a hunter tells a forestdweller that he himself kills only one animal a day and offers part of the flesh toGod, and that his offering purifies the killing. However, the other man, engaged in agriculture is said to kill, in the prices of accumulation grain, many more living begins in the form of seeds, and he also does not offer anything to God and, hence is guilty of maha-mamsa, or flesh eaten without ritual offering.
B. JAINAS
The Jainas respect the life of even the
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smallest creatures. One text enjoins that one should, after having listened to doctrine of ahimsa, give up at least ahimsa towards mobile beings, if one cannot also renounce ahimsa towards immobile beings. There are various rules which regulate ahimsa. Iryasamiti means care in walking so that no living beings, such as insects, are killed. A saint who walks upon frequented path, free from creatures, during the day-time all the while carefully watching the ground at a distance of two yards ahead -- he is observing care in walking. Another rule is asana-samiti, care in eating. One who takes food not especially prepared for him, which is free from living beings and offered by another with devotions-he is said to observe care in eating A monk should be careful when lifting things up and putting them down (adan-nikspanasmiti).
There is a tendency in Jain ethics to count each life-unit as one. Although the texts distinguish between one, two, three, four and five-sensed beings, in moral practice it is attempted to give the same value and justification for existence and enjoyment of the necessities of life to all living beings.
C. PALI BUDDHISM
A monk should not intentionally (sanciccu) destroy life, including lower organisms such as worms and ant. The Buddha seems to have paid more attention to the presence or absence of conscious intention in determining the moral demerit of killing.
Asoka ruled that husk should not be set fire to because it involves the killing of many living creatures (jiva) Similarly, forest should not be set fire to, on account of the harm (anatha) or injury (vihisa=vihimsa) which would be caused. He announced regulations enforcing non-violence (avihimsa) to beings (bhuta) and non killing (analambha anarambha) of creatures (pana). Asoka also ruled that on specific auspicious days certain domestic animals were not to be castrated. Thus he limited, but did not totally forbid, this particular type of violence. His political approach can be described as relativistic.
A) Dharmasatras and Puranas - Vegetarianism, ie., not using flesh, fish or eggs as food, is aparticular aspect of ahimsa towards animals; it has a very long tradition
in India.
In the Anusaana-Parva Bhisma explains to Yudhisthira that the meat of animals is like the flesh of one's own son, and that the foolish person who eats meat is considered the vilest of human beings. Manu condemns meat-eating; One who desires to increase his own flesh (sva-mamsa) by the meat of others (para-mamsa) with sacrificing to the Divine or to the gods is the worst type of sinner (apunya-krta).
In Manu's conception of vegetarianism all those are killers (nihantr) who give consent to killing, who dismember a living body, who actually kill, who purchase or sell meat, who purify it, who serve it and who eat the meat. Without killing living beings meat cannot be made available, and since killing is not conducive to heaven (to an ultimate good), one must give up eating meat.
The process of procuring meat involves killing as well as karmic bondage (bandha); keeping this in mind, one should refrain from eating all kinds of meat. Only when water has been sprinkled, when the appropriate mantras are recited, and when the Brahmins so desire, one may eat meat, during the performance of a rite.
In the anusasan-Parva the conviction is expressed that there is no positive merit in eating meat, though a concession is made in that the flesh of those animals which are killed and sacrificed according to the Vedic ordinances can be eaten. Those who eat flesh in any other way follow the evil raksasa practice. The eating of dirty food is not as blamable eating flesh which involves ahimsa or falsehood (antra).
Eating meat may even be obligatory in some cases. A man of the higher caste who does not eat flesh at the sacrifice for forefathers (pitr-karma) is said to become like an animal (pasuta) in this future incarnations. But these are exceptions and the rule is vegetarianism.
B. THE KURAL ABHORS MEAT EATING
In the chapter about the abjuration of fleshmeat the author of the Kural says that a meat-eater cannot really practice mercy (arul). The relation between meat-eating and killing is so close that it is idle to say that meat-eating is permissible while killing is bad. Interpreters of the Kural believe that the author is here attacking the Buddhists who are against killing but not strictly
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