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The Young Indian Vegetarians
NITIN MEHTA, (President) 226 LONDON ROAD, WEST CROYDON, SURREY, CRO 2TE. Tel: 01-681 8884 (DAY)
WHY WERE SO MANY GREAT HISTORICAL FIGURES VEGETARIAN ?
Some of the greatest personalities the world has known, shared an extraordinary ideal amongst themselves -- they were all vegetarian. It is extraordinary because these individuals, some of whom were the greatest philosophers and thinkers the world has known,came from very diverse, cultural, religious and racial background. Here is a list of these famous vegetarians:
Lord Buddba, Annie Besant, Blake, Benjamin Franklin, Gandhi, Plato, Plutarch, Pope, Pythagoras, Schopenauer, George Bernard Shaw, Shelley, Socrates, Thoreau, Tolstoy, Leonardo da Vinci, Voltaire, Wordsworth, Zoroaster, Isaac Newton, Darwin, St Francis of Assisi, John Ruskin. The list goes on, but when one sees that some of the wisest men and women the world has known, were vegetarian, then surely there is a very serious message that they have left to mankind which we ought to take notice of. Let us see what some of them have said on the matter of being a vegetarian. Let us begin with George Bernard Shaw: He said, and I quote "While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal condition on this earth?” Thoreau said: "I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of human race in its gradual development to leave off eating of animals". Mahatma Gandhi said "I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage, that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants". I will not kill or burn any living creature needlessly, nor destroy any beautiful thing, but will strive to save and comfort all gentle life.” said John Ruskin.
Pythagoras, famous for his contributions to geometry and mathematics said, “Oh my fellow men, do not defile your bodies with sinful foods. We have corn, we have apples bendling down the branches with their weight. The earth affords a lavish supply of riches, of innocent foods, and offers you banquets that involve no bloodshed or slaughter. It is said that Pythagoras would pay fisherman to throw their catch back into the sea.
"The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men”, thundered Leonardo da Vinci.
Leo Tolstoy made the same point with a different emphasis. He said: “This is dreadful Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity - that of sympathy and pity towards living creatures like himself - and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel, and how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life.
It is important to realise that these men expressed these views at a time when there were no factory farms, no vivisection and none of the remorseless exploitation of the animals that goes on today. Mahatma Gandhi once said that the moral progress of a nation and by implication the world, should be judged by the way it treats its animals. By this simple yardstick it is easy to see that while mankind might have made progress in many fields of life, in its treatment of animlas it has reversed the pace of human civilisation many times over. Let each one of us examine our conscience.
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