Ahimsa and the Vedas

[Anand Natarajan]

I think in this case the geography plays a very important role. For example Chritianity and Islam allow meat eating since they began in Palestine-Arabia which is an arid land. One cannot practise pure vegetarianism there, Budhisism does not allow meat eating. However Tibetan Buddhists live on Yak meat because they have no other choice. You cannot be a vegetarian in Tibet.
Practical circumstances in life, like war or disease may also force people to take meat. If there are no such circumstances in your life, then I beleive it is a sin to take an animal life.

Anand


 It seems to
>    me that after the vehement objections raised by the Buddhists and
>    Jains with respect to animal slaughter in Vedic rituals, "Ahimsa"
>    became a main issue of Indian ethics.  Furthermore, the association
>    of vegetarianism with Ahimsa seems to be a Jain contribution, as
>the
>    Buddhists do eat meat.  Even, Gandhiji seems to have been
>influenced
>    by Jainism more than Hinduism in this regard.  Later, during the
>    Bhakti era, many bhakti saints adopted vegetarianism ( which was an
>    attractive feature of Jainism, I suppose ). For instance, the tamil
>    word for vegetarian is literally "shaiva".  I think it is called
>    "vaishnava" up north.  Is it possible that our present conception
>of
>    ethics and ahimsa is a result of these influences and does not
>    reflect the "original" conception of Ahimsa?
>
>Thanks and forgive the rambling.
>
>-Vivek Aanand Ganesan.
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