Social Life in Ancient India: Studies in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra c5.s3.34

c5.s3.34

I, however, agree with Prof. Jolly (p. 26) in holding that the abstention from meat which Vātsyāyana refers to while defining *Dharma* is only a theory, or rather an ideal which, as Vātsyāyana says, people would learn from the *Śāstra* or the works on that subject and it did not represent the actual state of things in his time. A glimpse at real life which we have in his section on *Samprayoga* shows that meat diet was in vogue, and both amongst men and women. Vātsyāyana advises a lover to please his mistress when she feels rather tired or exhausted, with such relishes as roasted or dried meat as well as gruel and extracts of meat of various kinds. One of them is called by Vātsyāyana *accha-rasaka-yūṣam* and the commentary explains that it was a fresh extract of meat (*māṃsa-niryūham*), and another called *amla-yarāgū* is said to be prepared by boiling with meat (*māṃsa-siddhā*).³ The doctrine of *ahiṃsā* and the eating of meat have existed in India side by side since the earliest Vedic times and no conclusion can be arrived at with regard to the date of a work simply from the mention or non-mention of the doctrine of *ahiṃsā* in it. Even in the Ṛgveda, the cow was recognised as *aghnyā* and the ox as *aghnya* (not to be slaughtered), while in the *Vinaya Piṭaka* itself we are told that oxen in plenty were slaughtered by Siha, the Licchavi Commander-in-Chief to feed the Buddha and his attending bhikṣus.¹ A newly converted minister at Benares placed twelve hundred and fifty dishes of meat (māṃsa-pāti) before the bhikṣus including the Buddha himself.² The mere fact, therefore, that a work prohibits meat-eating is not sufficient reason to dub it as post-Buddhistic.