Hindu Medicine c8.183

c8.183

The emperor Aśoka, in the third century B. C., a leader in voicing this attitude, admonished the subjects of his vast dominions carefully to avoid the killing of living beings. He set an example in his own diet, banning meat dishes almost completely from the sumptuous royal kitchens. In his admonitory proclamations, inscribed on pillars and rocks all over his empire, he states that meat courses have been abolished from his august diet, which allows for the slaughter of only one peacock each day. The peacock (mayūra, mora) evidently constituted a kind of magic food of the dynasty, called after this bird the Maurya- (or Mora-)