Are Dharmics (Sanata Dharmees, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, etc.) vegetarians? Are they supposed to be vegetarians? Why be a vegetarian? These are some common questions to Dharmics.
Dharmics have two arguments in favor of being a vegetarian – yogic and karmic. Human body has three major energy consumers in it – brain, lungs, and the digestive system. They consume about 20% each. Approximately 50% of the energy consumption demand is by the thinking, breathing, and digestion process. In order to stay alert and active, where in the rest of the body requires its share of energy, a yogi tries to reduce and optimize the energy expenditure on these functions. Dhyaan (meditation), praanaayaam (controlled breathing), and controlled eating are the avenues to reduce the load on the brain, lungs, and digestive system. Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev explains this well. Take a piece of fruit or vegetable and take a piece of meat and let them sit outside. Watch what happens. Two things will stand out; notice the pace at which they disintegrate and the bacterial action involved in the breakdown. Now, imagine this same disintegration happening inside your body. Fruits and vegetables go through our digestive system in 10-12 hours. Meat, on the other hand, may take as much as 72 hours, which is about 5-6 times longer. Meat in the human digestive system sitting for 72 hours generates excessive level of bacterial activity catalyzed even further by the body’s favorable temperature and humidity conditions. The body has to take counter measures to keep this higher than normal bacterial activity in check, lest it take over and make it sick. So the body counter-reacts with its defense mechanisms. That takes excessive energy, which the body draws form other sources within itself. That drain of energy to the digestive process renders the body in a state of lethargy. To conserve energy for this digestive process, the body then requires more sleep. Eating meat, as it turns out is an expensive process for the body, fraught with risks of frequent infections, etc. due to body’s reduced immunity for lack of sleep and energy. The outcome of meat eating is lack of energy and lack of immunity. Both are bad for the yogis.
It is impossible to escape violence. We are violent squishing ants while walking, killing micro-organisms in uprooting carrots and planting seeds, or even inadvertently killing bugs and flies that enter our mouth. With that acceptance of daily violence around us, the goal of a dharmic is to reduce it as much as possible. It is not the dharma of a human being to kill without a just cause, especially killing for sense pleasure. If that is not paid attention to, then the karmic cycle accrues debt. You are swaying away from virtuous path, which is positive karmic cycle. As Ralph Waldo Emerson explains it, “You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughter-house is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity, – expensive races, – race living at the expense of race.” On the subject of fate, which is influenced by karma, he says, “And of all the drums and rattles by which men are made willing to have their heads broke, and are led out solemnly every morning to parade, – the most admirable is this by which we are brought to believe that events are arbitrary, and independent of actions. At the conjuror’s, we detect the hair by which he moves his puppet, but we have not eyes sharp enough to descry the thread that ties cause and effect.” On the path to accrue positive karma, it is advisable to reduce violence as much as possible, or else, you will get impacted. In Emerson’s words, “He looks like a piece of luck, but is a piece of causation.”
There are many instances in the Vedas and Manu-Samhita where it is advised to not eat meat. The underlying reason is to avoid bad karma. In Rig Veda it is advised to not kill a cow for meat so as to not deprive others of milk. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra and Padma Purana both encapsulate the idea of ahinsa (non-violence) as the highest dharma of a human being. Buddha Dharma scripture, The Mahaparinirvana Sutra, takes it to the next level of simplicity and says, “The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion.” Bible (Isaiah 66:3) builds on this and says, “He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man”. Prior to the Bible the ancient Greeks promoted vegetarianism as well. Pythagoras was a vegetarian and expected his followers to be. “Roman writer Ovid concluded his magnum opus Metamorphoses, in part, with the impassioned argument (uttered by the character of Pythagoras) that in order for humanity to change, or metamorphose, into a better, more harmonious species, it must strive towards more humane tendencies. He cited vegetarianism as the crucial decision in this metamorphosis, explaining his belief that human life and animal life are so entwined that to kill an animal is virtually the same as killing a fellow human.” [Vegetarianism. In Wikipedia. Retrieved October 4, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism]
The practicality of life makes many Dharmics non-vegetarians. Rajputs of Rajasthan and Brahmins of Kashmir are two examples of the strong local tradition of meat eating, amongst Dharmics, for practical reasons. Then there is the philosophical diversity as well. Rajiv Malik highlights the idea of vegetarianism as Vedantic as opposed to Tantrics who are open to occasional meat eating.
Going back in time to when Vedas were written, the idea of animal sacrifice was symbolic, where an animal was rarely used. Animal sacrifice was not a respectful thing to do. As Yogacharya Vamadev Shastri explains it, “Yet in late Vedic times, when the culture had fallen and come under the influence of the warrior class, animal sacrifice became common in India as it did elsewhere in the ancient world. Originally animal sacrifice of a limited nature was only allowed as a means to teach people of lower classes, who were inclined to eat meat indiscriminately, that animals were sacred and could not be eaten except as an offering to the divine with the strictest formalities and ceremony.” The tradition of bali (animal sacrifice) as a ritual for the divine is rooted in this mindset. The prevalence of bali for goddess Kali in Shakta tradition’s or the Ashwamedha yagya, where horses were sacrificed, in Vedic societies has its roots in this mindset.
The Vedic culture is a culture of cow, for its utility to the society. At the same time, there are complexities such as “Vedic Gods eating animal flesh, mainly Indra. This appears, along with Indra’s nature as a transcendent god beyond good and evil to do something forbidden, like slaying his own father. It does not indicate wide-spread meat eating.” As per Rig Veda, the eating of meat was allowed, for the mortals, in difficult conditions such as famine and travel. At few centuries later, The Bhagavad Gita uses the word chandala for those who eat dog meat and considers it unwise.
Are Dharmics (Sanatan Dharmees, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, etc.) vegetarians? Maybe. Are they supposed to be vegetarians? That’s for an individual to decide. The recommendation to be a vegetarian is certainly there. The case is quite strong.
धार्मिक छवियाँ 