[Advaita-l] Food habits

[S Jayanarayanan]

--- Sankaran Aniruddhan <ani at ee.washington.edu> wrote:

> namaste,
> 
> >The contradiction is in these verses:
> >MS 5.35: "Consecrated meat (i.e. meat from a YaGYa) should be
> eaten."
> >MS 5.52: "Unconsecrated meat (i.e. meat not from a YaGYa) should not
> be
> >eaten."
> >MS 5.56: "There is no fault in meat-eating...but abstinence bears
> great
> >fruit."
> >
> >Note that the meat that is being referred to in MS 5.56 can be
> neither
> >consecrated nor unconsecrated.
> 
> Kartik, can MS 5.56 be interpreted in the following way (I have added
> modifiers in "()" braces):
> 
> "There is no fault in eating (consecrated) meat (this is mentioned
> explicitly so that people don't get misled by MS 5.52). However,
> abstinence (in performing a kAmya yajna that involves animal
> sacrifice)
> bears great fruit..."
> 

Note that the "faultless action" that is being talked about in MS 5.56
is "meat-eating". So the word "abstinence" must refer to the *same
action*, otherwise the verse doesn't make sense. In your
interpretation, the "faultless action" is taken to be "eating
consecrated meat", but the "abstinence" is that of "performing kAmya
karmas that require animal sacrifice". 

Besides the above verse, several verses in MS also speak of meat-eating
outside of a Vedic YaGYa:

MS 5.18: The porcupine, the hedgehog, the iguana, the rhinoceros, the
tortoise, and the hare they declare to be eatable; likewise those
(domestic animals) that have teeth in one jaw only, excepting camels.

Are there any Vedic YaGYas that require the sacrifice of a porcupine,
hedgehog, iguana, rhinoceros, tortoise, or a hare? If not, why are the
animals mentioned as eatable - such animals can never be sacrificed in
a Vedic YaGYa, and so their meat should automatically be forbidden as
per MS 5.52.


BTW, there was an error in my previous posting:

> But besides MS, the Apastamba dharma sUtra clearly is
> pro-meat-eating:
> http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m6979.html
> One commentator on this shAstra, Haradatta, even says that hunting
> dogs
> can be used to hunt down animals (such as deer) for their meat!
> 

I meant the **Gautama** (not Apastamba) dharma sUtra, vide
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sla/gau17.htm (Gautama 17.38)

> Aniruddhan
> 
> Sruti smRti purANAnAm Alayam karuNAlayam
> namAmi bhagavatpAda Sam.karam lokaSam.karam
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