History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c10.24

v1.c10.24

Secondly, the doctrine of Ahinsā had become acceptable to almost all the different schools of religious thought in India. Its opponents were chiefly the Mīmānsakas or the upholders of the old Vedic sacrifice, besides of course the Lokāyatikas or atheists and perhaps Pāśupatas. but even these Mīmānsakas had already come round to accept it so far as ordinary slaughter of animals was concerned. From the Mahābhārata we already find the compromise arrived at namely that although slaughter for purposes of sacrifice and Śrāddha was no slaughter it was so for all ordinary purposes. We have shown elsewhere (Epic India) that the Ahinsā doctrine was originally started by Hinduism itself against animal sacrifice. (See Brihadāraṇya and other Upanishads). But it was taken up by the Buddhists and the Jains and placed in the foremost rank of their tenets. Whenever Buddhism flourished animal sacrifices, therefore, fell in abeyance and along with it naturally animal food also. The growth of the worship of Kṛiṣhṇa had made cows and bulls objects of special adoration to the Hindus also and the slaughter of cows and bulls had entirely ceased, as also that of certain larger animals. When Hiuen Tsang visited India this prohibition had become so strong "that the flesh of oxen, asses, elephants, horses, pigs, dogs, foxes, wolves, lions, monkeys and apes was entirely forbidden and those who ate such food became pariahs" (Watters' Records V. I. P. 178).