[Advaita-l] Advaitic Foods - the nAstIka influence

[Satish Arigela]

namaste,

>> brAhmaNa-s refraining from eating meat is more because of bauddha and jaina 
>> influence.

>That is certainly the refrain of modern Indologists who wish to minimize the 
>worth of the Vaidika traditions and ascribe all good qualities to the 
>>Judeo-Christian faiths as far as possible, or at least to Buddhism and Jainism 
>where not. 

You are right about the majority of indologists.  But I for one certainly is not 
the kind who would blindly quote material dished out by these biased 
indologists. 


There is sufficient internal evidence within Hinduism itself that in ancient 
days, brAhamaNa-s ate meat and that it declined over time.

Not just indologists even traditional scholars believe that the nAstIka mata-s 
did have clear role in brAhmaNa-s giving up meat.

Such positions were taken by brAhmaNa-s as a result of debates with bauddha-s 
and the jaina-s in vidvat sabha-s over a time period of couple of centuries.

But like to emphasize that they are not the only reason. Abstaining from mAmsa 
and maithuna and from other pleasures was there among brAhmaNa-s from very 
earlier times.

Regards



________________________________
From: Shrisha Rao <shrao at nyx.net>
To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Sent: Fri, December 17, 2010 3:32:49 AM
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Advaitic Foods

El dic 16, 2010, a las 2:53 p.m., Satish Arigela escribió:

> brAhmaNa-s refraining from eating meat is more because of bauddha and jaina 
> influence.

That is certainly the refrain of modern Indologists who wish to minimize the 
worth of the Vaidika traditions and ascribe all good qualities to the 
Judeo-Christian faiths as far as possible, or at least to Buddhism and Jainism 
where not.  However, it is not correct in any obvious sense.  Buddhists have 
never been vegetarians themselves -- the Buddha himself is said (by Buddhists) 
to have died by choking on a bone in his food, and Buddhists have always eaten 
all kinds of flesh, as may be seen even today.  The Buddhists criticized animal 
sacrifices as part of their all-round condemnation of Vedic rites, but this was 
not because of their concern for the pain and suffering of animals.

With the Jaina tradition there is the actual practice of vegetarianism and 
concern for the suffering of animals, but there is no significant scholarly 
basis (the absurd fantasies of people like Zydenbos notwithstanding) to say that 
said tradition has had a significant influence on the Vaidika-s.  There is 
sufficient reason to hold that the Vaidika ethos is sui generis.

Regards,

Shrisha Rao

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