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Jainism and Meat-Eating
: 195
The following few explanations will help a great deal in interpreting and understanding the texts of the quotation under discussion.
(1) A host when offering food to a monk uses the words i and 408 and the author of the text in permitting a food does not use the same words मंस and मच्छ, but their forms मंसगं and मच्छगं. What should be the motive in using this ending" It is used to impart to it the idea of a simile, meaning thereby something similar to flesh or fish but not flesh or fish itself.
(2) The practice of giving the illustration of hy must have been frequently resorted to by writers in those days, as it is evident from the following -
Patañjali in his Mahābhāsya and Vācaspati Miśra in his Tātparya Mimāṁsā make use of this illustration as follows :
कश्चित् मांसाथीं मत्स्यान् सशकलान् सकण्टकान् आहरति नान्तरीयकत्वात् स यावदादेयं तावदादाय शकलकण्टकानि उत्सृजति।। तस्मान्मासार्थीव कण्टकान् उद्धृत्य मांसमश्नत्रानर्थ कण्टकजन्यमाप्नोतीत्येवं प्रेक्षावान् दुःखमुद्धृत्येन्द्रियादिसातं सुखं भोक्ष्यते.॥2
A meat-eater brings fish with its scales and thorns as they are inseparable, but he eats only the flesh, the eatable part and throws off the scales and the thorns, the uneatable hard stuff.
3. Following are some of the many examples of vegetarian food which are acceptable to the Jaina monks, and which answer to the properties as described in the text by the author e.g.
(1) Cooked vegetables of*ak, TET, PINIGT, qual, etc. (2) Pickles of jer, dates and mangoes.
(3) Small pieces of sugar cane. *ar = Zizypghus Jujuba, TC = Cordia-Latifolia, girigt = Trapa bispinosa, qual = Moringa Pterigo-sperma.
