Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s37.19

c11.s37.19

That men should treat animals kindly and not inflict pain on them unnecessarily was as much the concern of Aśoka as that they should preserve concord among themselves. He became a wholehearted adherent of the doctrine of *ahiṃsā*, and devised several regulations for the encouragement of its practice and the prevention of cruelty to animals. In the first Rock-Edict Aśoka forbids the slaughter and sacrifice of animals in his territory and the holding of all *samājas* (festive gatherings) except those considered meritorious by him. He also states that whereas formerly hundreds of thousands of animals were killed every day in the royal kitchen for the sake of curry (*sūpārthāya*), only three animals were slaughtered at the time the edict was being issued, viz., two peacocks and one deer, but even the deer not regularly, and that in future even these animals would not be killed². Aśoka, it will be noticed, does not impose any restrictions on others which he does not put upon himself, and in this edict we seem to find what was perhaps the most decisive step in the acceptance of vegetarianism by considerable sections of the Indian population outside the Jaina community. The prohibition of animal sacrifice has been viewed by some writers as a measure of intolerance directed against Brahmanism; doubtless Vedic sacrifices involving the killing of live animals fell under the prohibition, and to that extent it must count as virtually a hindrance to the practice of Vedic religion; but its importance is easily exaggerated. The primacy of Vedic religion in all India was by no means as well assured in Aśoka's time as it became since; the followers of Vedic religion were themselves debating if the time had not come for a change in sacrificial practice giving up the immolation of live victims; and in any case the number of such sacrifices would never have been very great as the smallest *paśuyāga* is a costly business, and the practical inconvenience caused by the prohibition would have been very little; lastly, for every victim in a brahminical sacrifice, there would have been hundreds of victims sacrificed in the worship of lesser godlings by the mass of the populace who were still largely addicted to relatively primitive types of worship, and the prohibition affected them much more than the upper strata of society and religion. Likewise the *samājas* that were prohibited were occasions for the slaughter of numerous animals for feeding the large numbers that gathered together and made merry on such occasions ; there was another type of *samājas* approved of Aśoka where semi-religious theatrical and other shows like representations of aerial chariots, of elephants, of *agniskandhas* and other divine figures, instructed and edified the assemblies, and these were actively encouraged¹. All the prohibitions of the First Rock-Edict had therefore no other object in view than to minimise the destruction of animal life.