Vegetarianism and religion
Vegetarianism and religion are strongly linked in a number of religions that originated in ancient India (Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism). In Jainism, vegetarianism is mandatory for everyone; in Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism, it is advocated by some influential scriptures and religious authorities. Comparatively, in the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) and in Sikhism, vegetarianism is not promoted by mainstream authorities. In Christianity and Sikhism, however, there are groups promoting vegetarianism on religious grounds.
Indian religions
Most Indian religions have philosophical schools that forbid consumption of meat and Jainism institutes an outright ban on the same. Consequently, India is home to more vegetarians than any other country. About 30% of India's 1.2 billion population practices lacto vegetarianism, with overall meat consumption increasing.
Jainism
Vegetarianism in Jainism is based on the principle of nonviolence (ahimsa) like in Hinduism, but it is stricter than in the main Hindu traditions and are considered mandatory for everyone. Jains are either lacto-vegetarians or vegans. No use or consumption of products obtained from dead animals is allowed. Moreover Jains try to avoid unnecessary injury to plants and suksma jiva (Sanskrit for subtle life forms; minuscule organisms). The goal is to cause as little violence to living things as possible, hence they avoid eating roots, tubers and anything that involves uprooting (and thus eventually killing) a plant to obtain food.
Every act by which a person directly or indirectly supports killing or injury is seen as violence (himsa), which creates harmful karma. The aim of ahimsa is to prevent the accumulation of such karma. Jains consider nonviolence to be the most essential religious duty for everyone (ahinsā paramo dharmaḥ, a statement often inscribed on Jain temples). Their scrupulous and thorough way of applying nonviolence to everyday activities, and especially to food, shapes their entire lives and is the most significant hallmark of Jain identity. A side effect of this strict discipline is the exercise of asceticism, which is strongly encouraged in Jainism for lay people as well as for monks and nuns.
Jains do not believe in animal sacrifice as they consider all sentient beings to be equal.
Hinduism
Vegetarianism is an integral part of most schools of Hinduism although there are a wide variety of practices and beliefs that have changed over time. An estimated 20 to 30% of all Hindus are vegetarians.Some sects of Hindus do not observe vegetarianism.
Nonviolence
The principle of nonviolence (Ahimsa) applied to animals is connected with the intention to avoid negative karmic influences which result from violence. The suffering of all beings is believed to arise from craving and desire, conditioned by the karmic effects of both animal and human action. The violence of slaughtering animals for food, and its source in craving, reveal flesh eating as one mode in which humans enslave themselves to suffering. Hinduism holds that such influences affect he who permits the slaughter of an animal, he who cuts it up, he who kills it, he who buys or sells meat, he who cooks it, he who serves it up, and he who eats it. They must all be considered the slayers of the animal. The question of religious duties towards the animals and of negative Karma incurred from violence (himsa) against them is discussed in detail in Hindu scriptures and religious law books.
Hindu scriptures belong or refer to the Vedic period which lasted till about 500 BCE according to the chronological division by modern historians. In the historical Vedic religion, the predecessor of Hinduism, meat eating was not banned in principle, but was restricted by specific rules. Several highly authoritative scriptures bar violence against domestic animals except in the case of ritual sacrifice. This view is clearly expressed in the Mahabharata (3.199.11-12; 13.115; 13.116.26; 13.148.17), the Bhagavata Purana (11.5.13-14), and the Chandogya Upanishad (8.15.1). For instance, many Hindus point to the Mahabharata's maxim that "Nonviolence is the highest duty and the highest teaching," as advocating a vegetarian diet. It is also reflected in the Manu Smriti (5.27-44), a particularly renowned traditional Hindu law book (Dharmaśāstra). These texts strongly condemn the slaughter of animals and meat eating.
The Mahabharata (12.260; 13.115-116; 14.28) and the Manu Smriti (5.27-55) contain lengthy discussions about the legitimacy of ritual slaughter and subsequent consumption of the meat. In the Mahabharata both meat eaters and vegetarians present various arguments to substantiate their viewpoints. Apart from the debates about domestic animals, there is also a long discourse by a hunter in defence of hunting and meat eating. These texts show that both ritual slaughter and hunting were challenged by advocates of universal non-violence and their acceptability was doubtful and a matter of dispute.
Spiritual aspects
In some traditions, especially within Vaishnavism, it is essential that devotees offer all their food to their chosen deity before eating it as prasad. This rule is strictly observed by the disciples of the schools of Bhakti Yoga, especially the Gaudiya Vaishnavas. They worship Vishnu or Krishna, and according to the scriptural injunctions they obey, only vegetarian food is acceptable as prasad.
Vegetarianism is also mandatory for the practitioners of Hatha Yoga. They follow the advice of scriptures such as the Bhagavad Gita to eat only high-quality food, because they are convinced that food shapes the personality, mood and mind. Meat is said to promote sloth and ignorance and an undesirable mental state known as tamas, while a vegetarian diet is considered to promote the desirable sattvic qualities essential for spiritual progress.
Essential scriptural evidence
"What need there be said of those innocent and healthy creatures endued with love of life, when they are sought to be slain by sinful wretches subsisting by slaughter? For this reason, O monarch, know that the discarding of meat is the highest refuge of religion, of heaven, and of happiness. Abstention from injury is the highest religion. It is, again, the highest penance. It is also the highest truths from which all duty proceeds. Flesh cannot be had from grass or wood or stone. Unless a living creature is slain, it cannot be had. Hence is the fault in eating flesh... That man who abstains from meat, is never put in fear, O king, by any creature. All creatures seek his protection. He never causes any anxiety in others, and himself has never to become anxious. If there were nobody who ate flesh there would then be nobody to kill living creatures. The man who kills living creatures kill them for the sake of the person who eats flesh. If flesh were regarded as inedible, there would then be no slaughter of living creatures. It is for the sake of the eater that the slaughter of living creatures goes on in the world. Since, O thou of great splendour, the period of life is shortened of persons who slaughter living creatures or cause them to be slaughtered, it is clear that the person who wishes his own good should give up meat entirely... The purchaser of flesh performs himsa [violence] by his wealth; he who eats flesh does so by enjoying its taste; the killer does himsa by actually tying and killing the animal. Thus, there are three forms of killing. He who brings flesh or sends for it, he who cuts off the limbs of an animal, and he who purchases, sells, or cooks flesh and eats it—all of these are to be considered meat-eaters." (Mahabharata 13.115)
"Those sinful persons who are ignorant of actual religious principles, yet consider themselves to be completely pious, without compunction commit violence against innocent animals who are fully trusting in them. In their next lives, such sinful persons will be eaten by the same creatures they have killed in this world." (Bhagavata Purana 11.5.14)
"A person fully aware of religious principles should never offer anything like meat, eggs or fish in the Sraddha ceremony, and even if one is a Kshatriya (warrior), he himself should not eat such things." (Bhagavata Purana 7.15.7)
Current situation
In modern India the food habits of Hindus vary according to their community or caste and according to regional traditions. Hindu vegetarians usually eschew eggs but consume milk and dairy products, so they are lacto-vegetarians.
According to a survey of 2006, vegetarianism is weak in coastal states and strong in landlocked northern and western states and among Brahmins in general, 55 percent of whom are vegetarians. Many coastal inhabitants are fish eaters. In particular Bengali Hindus have romanticized fishermen and the consumption of fish through poetry, literature and music.
Hindus who eat meat are encouraged to eat Jhatka meat.
Bali sacrifice
Bali Sacrifice (sometimes known as Jhatka Bali) is the ritual killing of an animal in Hinduism.
The ritual sacrifice normally forms part of a festival to honour a Hindu god. For example, in Nepal the Hindu goddess Gadhimai, is honoured every 5 years with the slaughter of 250,000 animals. Bali sacrifice today is common at the Sakta shrines of the Goddess Kali.
Buddhism
The first lay precept in Buddhism prohibits killing. Unlike the Biblical commandment ("Thou shalt not kill"), which Jewish and Christian authorities have typically applied only to human beings, the First Precept has always been held to apply to animals as well as humans. Many see this as implying that Buddhists should not eat the meat of animals. There are however differing points of view. The Buddha made distinction between killing an animal and consumption of meat, stressing that it is immoral conduct that makes one impure, not the food one eats. At one point the Buddha specifically refused to institute vegetarianism. There were, however, rules prohibiting certain types of meat, such as human, leopard or elephant. Monks are also prohibited from consuming meat if they witnessed the animal's death or know it was killed specifically for them.
On the other hand, the Buddha in certain Mahayana sutras strongly denounces the eating of meat. In the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the Buddha states that "the eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion", adding that all and every kind of meat and fish consumption (even of animals already found dead) is prohibited by him. The Buddha goes on to emphasize that meat-eating cannot coexist with the great compassion and calls for not just a vegetarian, but a vegan lifestyle. The Buddha also predicts in this sutra that later monks will "hold spurious writings to be the authentic Dharma" and will concoct their own sutras and mendaciously claim that the Buddha allows the eating of meat, whereas in fact (he says) he does not. The Lankavatara Sutra (a Mahayana scripture), in particular, devotes an entire chapter to the Buddha's response to the request of a disciple named Mahamati to "teach us as to the merit and vice of meat-eating." A long passage in the Lankavatara Sutra shows the Buddha weighing strongly in favor of vegetarianism, since the eating of the flesh of fellow sentient beings is said by him to be incompatible with the compassion a Bodhisattva should strive to cultivate. Several other Mahayana sutras also emphatically prohibit the consumption of meat.
A solution to this problem arose when monks from the Indian sphere of influence migrated to China, as of the year 65 CE. There they met followers who provided them with money instead of food. From those days onwards Chinese monastics, and others who came to inhabit northern countries, cultivated their own vegetable plots and bought everything else they needed in terms of food in the market.
In the modern Buddhist world, attitudes toward vegetarianism vary by location. In China and Vietnam, monks typically eat no meat (and with other restrictions as well—see Buddhist cuisine). In Japan or Korea some schools do not eat meat, while most do. Theravadins in Sri Lanka and South-east Asia do not practice vegetarianism. All Buddhists however, including monks, are allowed to practice vegetarianism if they wish to do so. Experts have estimated that worldwide about half of all Buddhists are vegetarian.
Sikhism
Followers of Sikhism do not have a preference for meat or vegetarian consumption. There are two views on initiated or "Amritdhari Sikhs" and meat consumption. "Amritdhari" Sikhs (i.e. those that follow the Sikh Rehat Maryada - the Official Sikh Code of Conduct) can eat meat (provided it is not Kutha meat)."Amritdharis" that belong to some Sikh sects (e.g. Akhand Kirtani Jatha, Damdami Taksal, Namdhari, Rarionwalay, etc.) are vehemently against the consumption of meat and eggs.
In the case of meat, the Sikh Gurus have indicated their preference for a simple diet, which could include meat or be vegetarian. Passages from the Guru Granth Sahib (the holy book of Sikhs, also known as the Adi Granth) say that fools argue over this issue. Guru Nanak said that overconsumption of food (Lobh, Greed) involves a drain on the Earth's resources and thus on life. The tenth guru, Guru Gobind Singh, prohibited the Sikhs from the consumption of halal or Kutha (any ritually slaughtered meat) meat because of the Sikh belief that sacrificing an animal in the name of God is mere ritualism (something to be avoided).
On the views that eating vegetation would be eating flesh, first Sikh Guru Nanak states:
First Mehl:
ਪਾਂਡੇ ਤੂ ਜਾਣੈ ਹੀ ਨਾਹੀ ਕਿਥਹੁ ਮਾਸੁ ਉਪੰਨਾ ॥ ਤੋਇਅਹੁ ਅੰਨੁ ਕਮਾਦੁ ਕਪਾਹਾਂ ਤੋਇਅਹੁ ਤ੍ਰਿਭਵਣੁ ਗੰਨਾ ॥
O Pandit, you do not know where did flesh originate! It is water where life originated and it is water that sustains all life. It is water that produces grains, sugarcane, cotton and all forms of life.
On Vegetation, the Guru described it as living and experiencing pain:
Page 143 of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji
Look, and see how the sugar-cane is cut down. After cutting away its branches, its feet are bound together into bundles,
and then, it is placed between the wooden rollers and crushed.
What punishment is inflicted upon it! Its juice is extracted and placed in the cauldron; as it is heated, it groans and cries out.
And then, the crushed cane is collected and burnt in the fire below.
Nanak: come, people, and see how the sweet sugar-cane is treated!
- Page 143 Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji
Sikhs who eat meat, eat Jhatka meat.
Abrahamic religions
Judaic, Christian, and Muslim traditions (Abrahamic religions) all have strong connections to the Biblical ideal of the Garden of Eden, which includes references to a herbivore diet. However, only minorities within those populations actually practice and advocate such diets, since the same book of the Bible, Genesis, later allegedly gives permission to Noah (and presumably his descendants) to consume animal flesh due to a supposed emergency lack of food.
Judaism
Rabbinical Judaism discourages ascetic practices in general, and encourages one to enjoy the bounty of this world in a proper fashion. With respect to food, this teaching may be summarized by the Talmudic statement, "Man will have to account for everything he saw but did not eat." (This refers to permissible or kosher foods only, not to forbidden animal species such as pork.) On the other hand, the Talmud discourages indulgence and states that it is preferable that one's diet consist mostly of non-meat products. To Jewish vegetarians wishing to remain consistent with this teaching, vegetarianism is not a form of self-deprivation, because the vegetarian does not desire to eat meat and believes it is healthier not to eat meat.
Several passages in the Old Testament encourages eating animal flesh such as Genesis 9:3 which states "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you."
Genesis 1:29 states "And God said: Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree that has seed-yielding fruit—to you it shall be for food." According to some classical Jewish Bible commentators this means that God's original plan was for mankind to be vegetarian, and that God only later gave permission for man to eat meat because of man's weak nature.· As the ideal images of the Torah are vegetarian, it is natural to similarly see the laws of kashrut as actually designed to wean us away from meat eating towards the vegetarian ideal. The rituals of kashrut remind us of the magnitude of what we do each time we kill a living being. Other commentators argue that people may eat animals because God gave Adam and Eve dominion over them.
Generally speaking, Judaism has not promoted vegetarianism. However, some prominent rabbis have promoted vegetarian lifestyle, among them David Cohen (known as "Ha-Nazir"), and Chief Rabbi of Israel Shlomo Goren. Rabbi Isaac ha-Levi Herzog said:
- "Jews will move increasingly to vegetarianism out of their own deepening knowledge of what their tradition commands... A whole galaxy of central rabbinic and spiritual leaders...has been affirming vegetarianism as the ultimate meaning of Jewish moral teaching."
- "Man ideally should not eat meat, for to eat meat a life must be taken, an animal must be put to death."
Rabbi Milgrom regards the commandment against blood as a law that permits man to "indulge in his lust for meat and not be brutalized in the process."
Some Orthodox authorities have ruled that it is forbidden for an individual to become a vegetarian if they do so because they believe in animal rights; however, they have ruled that vegetarianism is allowed for pragmatic reasons (if kosher meat is expensive or hard to come by in their area), health concerns, or for reasons of personal taste (if someone finds meat unpalatable). Some believe that halakha encourages the eating of meat at the Sabbath and Festival meals, thus some Orthodox Jews who are otherwise vegetarian will nevertheless consume meat at these meals.
There are several arguments from Judaism used by Jewish vegetarians. For the Jewish vegetarian there are three main components which prove vegetarianism to be an ethical mitzvah: Tza'ar ba'alei hayyim, Pikuach nefesh and Bal tashkhit. Tza'ar ba'alei hayyim is the injunction not to cause 'pain to living creatures'. Pikuach nefesh is not only the regard for human life which is in immediate danger. Bal Tashchit is the law which prohibits waste. Another argument is that, since Adam and Eve were not allowed to eat meat and that, according to some opinions, in the Messianic era, the whole world will be vegetarian, not eating meat is something that brings the world closer to that ideal. In his booklet summarizing many of Rav Kook's teachings, Joseph Green, a 20th-century South African Jewish vegetarian writer, concludes that Jewish religious ethical vegetarians are pioneers of the messianic era; they are leading lives that make the coming of the Messiah more likely. The Jewish tradition asserts that one way to speed the coming of the Messiah is to start practicing the ways that will prevail in the messianic time. A second one is that the laws of shechita are meant to prevent the suffering of animals and today, with factory farming and high-speed, mechanized slaughterhouses, even kosher slaughterhouses are considered by some authorities not to fulfill enough of the requirements to render the meat kosher. A third one is that the Sages only mandated eating an olive's bulk of meat during festivals, but even then, this was because in Talmudic times, meat was considered essential for one's diet.
Sacrifices were used as an excuse to eat meat, and later denounced.
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- Hosea 8:13
- They offer sacrifices to me because they are those who eat the meat, but Hashem does not accept their sacrifices, for He is mindful of their sin and remembers their wickedness
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- Hosea 6:6
- For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
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- Jeremiah 7:22-23
- 22 For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, 23 but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you.
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- Isaiah 66:3
- But whoever sacrifices a bull is like one who kills a man, and whoever offers a lamb, like one who breaks a dog's neck and whoever makes a grain offering is like one who presents pig's blood, and whoever burns memorial incense, like one who worships an idol. They have chosen their own ways, and their souls delight in their abominations;
In Israel there is one vegetarian moshav (village), called Amirim. Its vegetarianism is based on general principles of health and ethics and not on the Jewish religion.
Christianity
Several Christian monastic groups, including the Desert Fathers, Trappists, Benedictines and Carthusians, all of the Orthodox monks and also Christian esoteric groups, such as the Rosicrucian Fellowship, have encouraged vegetarianism. Some Christian groups, such as Seventh-Day Adventists, the Christian Vegetarian Association and Christian anarchists, take a literal interpretation of the Biblical prophecies of universal veg(etari)anism and encourage veg(etari)anism as a preferred lifestyle or as a tool to reject the commodity status of animals and the use of animal products for any purpose, although some of them say it is not required. However, most evangelical groups claim to be unaware of the existence of any such prophecies, and point instead to allegedly explicit prophecies of temple sacrifices in the Messianic Kingdom, e.g. Ezekiel 46:12, where so-called peace offerings and so-called freewill offerings are said that will be offered, and Leviticus 7:15-20 where it states that such offerings are eaten, what may contradict the very purpose of Jesus' purportedly sufficient atonement. Some Christian vegetarians argue that Jesus himself was a vegetarian. There is one argument that Jesus was an Essene (vegetarian inhabitants of the Dead Sea community at Qumran). The present academic consensus is that Jesus was not an Essene. There is no historical record of Jesus' precise attitudes to animals, but there is a strand in his ethical teaching about the primacy of mercy to the weak, the powerless and the oppressed, which Walters and Portmess argue can also refer to captive animals. St. Augustine and Saint David became vegetarians for ascetic reasons, not necessarily because of a religious edict to that effect. In the 19th century, members of the Bible Christian sect established the first vegetarian groups in England and United States.
On a more practical level, Eastern Christianity generally recommends veganism. Naturally vegetarianism is practiced as part of fasting during the Great Lent (although shellfish and other non-vertebrate products are generally considered acceptable during some periods of this time); vegan fasting is particularly common in Eastern Orthodoxy the Oriental Orthodox Churches, such as the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, which generally fasts 210 days out of the year.
Islam
Islam explicitly prohibits eating of some kinds of meat, especially pork. However, one of the most important Islamic celebrations, Eid ul-Adha, involves animal sacrifices. Muslims who can afford to do so sacrifice their best domestic animals (usually sheep, but also camels, cows, and goats). According to the Quran a large portion of the meat has to be given towards the poor and hungry, and every effort is to be made to see that no impoverished Muslim is left without sacrificial food during days of feast like Eid-ul-Adha. Since these practices are justified by Koran, advocacy of vegetarianism by implying that God ordained diet to be immoral could be seen as contrary to Islam. Certain Islamic orders are mainly vegetarian; many Sufis maintain a vegetarian diet.
Rastafari
Rastafarians generally follow a diet called "I-tal", which eschews the eating of food that has been artificially preserved, flavoured, or chemically altered in any way. Some Rastafarians consider it to also forbid the eating of meat but the majority will not eat pork.
Bahá'í Faith
While there are no dietary restrictions in the Bahá'í Faith, `Abdu'l-Bahá, the son of the founder of the religion, noted that a vegetarian diet consisting of fruits and grains was desirable, except for people with a weak constitution or those that are sick. He stated that there are no requirements that Bahá'ís become vegetarian, but that a future society would gradually become vegetarian.`Abdu'l-Bahá also stated that killing animals was somewhat contrary to compassion. While Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith stated that a purely vegetarian diet would be preferable since it avoided killing animals, both he and the Universal House of Justice, the governing body of the Bahá'ís have stated that these teachings do not constitute a Bahá'í practice and that Bahá'ís can choose to eat whatever they wish, but to be respectful of others beliefs.
Other religions
Taoism
In Chinese societies, "simple eating" (素食 Mandarin: sù shí) refers to a particular restricted diet associated with Taoist monks, and sometimes practiced by members of the general population during Taoist festivals. It is referred to by the English word "vegetarian"; however, though it rejects meat, eggs, and milk, this diet does include oysters and oyster products.
Zoroastrianism
One of the main precepts in Zoroastrianism is respect and kindness towards all living things, condemnation of cruelty against animals and the sacrifice of animals.
Neopaganism
There is no set teaching on vegetarianism within the diverse neopagan communities, however many do follow a vegetarian diet often connected to ecological concerns as well as the welfare and rights of animals. Vegetarian practitioners of Wicca will often see their standpoint as a natural extension of the Wiccan Rede and Odinists of Odinism. Organizations like SERV refer to the historic figures of Porphyry, Pythagoras and Iamblichus as sources for the Pagan view of vegetarianism. During the 1970s the publication Earth Religion News, focused on articles related to neopaganism and vegetarianism, it was edited by the author Herman Slater.
Meher Baba's teachings
The spiritual teacher Meher Baba recommended a vegetarian diet for his followers because he held that it helps one to avoid certain impurities: "Killing an animal for sport, pleasure or food means catching all its bad impressions, since the motive is selfish....Impressions are contagious. Eating meat is prohibited in many spiritual disciplines because therein the person catches the impressions of the animal, thus rendering himself more susceptible to lust and anger."
Shinto
In Shinto it is completely unknown whether veg(tari)anism is a part of the faith or not.
Venu Haridas
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