The Buddhistic Rule Against Eating Meat
By E. Washburn Hopkins
Journal of American Oriental Society
Vol. XXVII, 1907, pp. 455-464
p. 455
The fact assertted in Mr. H. Fielding Hall's
People at School (1906) that, although in the old
days "it was immoral to take life, wicked to eat meat
and connive at butchery," it is now the custom for
Burmese Buddhists to do as they like in regard to
eating ("Every one eats meat, even the monks, "
p.257), is explained by the author as a new
departure, due to the stimulating effect of the
presence in Burma of the British beef eater. Is it
not, in reality, a reversal in favor of a rule of
greater freedom? Perhaps it is true that the Burman
has but lately found out for himself that the
"religion of Necessity" is better than the religion
of Buddha as hitherto understood, for a progressive
Burman may have to eat well to compete with British
energy; but it is matter of interest to inquire just
how strict in ancient times was the law against
eating meat.
The great Protestant of India was no formalist.
According to the Vinaya, which seems rather to
reflect the Master's attitude than really to give his
words as it pretends to do, Buddha was perpetually
harassed by imbecile friars, whose childish questions
he always answered in a spirit of liberality and
common sense. Even later works show that to observe
the spirit and not the letter was the Buddhistic
ideal. What is said of verse may be applied to law,
attham hi natho saranam avoca
na bhyanjanam lokavidu mahesi,
"The all-wise Lord declared that salvation lies in
the spirit and not in the letter" (Comm. Khuddaka
Patha, v). Thus, for example, the general rule
against suicide emanated from the view that a saint
ought to remain on earth as a good example; yet, in
special circumstances, Buddha is represented as
approving of suicide, as in the case of the Elder
Godhika. Here it is only the Evil One who objects to
the act, on the ground that to cut one's own throat
argues a perfected saint (one indifferent
p. 456
to life), and that it is undesirable for the Evil One
thus to lose possession of the good Elder.(1)
So also the early Church, in the case of killing
and eating, appears to have been less strict than the
later. The later Brahmanic law, like that of the
Jains, was very particular in regard to these points.
Except for sacrifice, to kill no sentient thing and
to eat no meat were absolute priestly laws. Even
starvation was barely an excuse for breaking these
regulations, though the class that did as it pleased
despite the priests was reluctantly conceded the
right to hunt wild animals, and the priest even found
mythological reasons which made it meritorious for a
'king's man' to kill deer as well as men. People
outside the pale of respectability, fishers, fowlers,
tanners, etc., were also contemptuously permitted to
remain in their odor of non-sanctity. But for a
priest even necessary agriculture was deprecated,
'because the plough hurts living things.' That this
'non-injury' rule was Buddhistic in origin is
contrary to the evidence. Even the oldest Brahmanic
law, which is at least as venerable as any Buddhistic
literature, inculcates the general moral rule of
doing as one would be done by in the matter of
injuring, killing, and eating one's brother-animal.
Nevertheless, there are traces of a condition of
things much freer than this in the Brahmanic circle
of a still earlier day. In Ait. Br. iv. 3, man is
said to eat, as well as rule over, cattle: purusah
pasusu pratisthito 'tti cai'nan adhi ca tisthati (on
pasu as implying cattle, cf. vi. 20). It is a Brahman
priest who says that he eats beef if it is off the
shoulder(? amsalam, Sat. Br. iii. 1. 2. 21). The
common people are said at the same period to be
omophagous, amad (Kanva text, ib. iv. 5. 2. 16), and
the king has at least no scruples in regard to
wearing leather sandals, varahya upanaha, ib. v. 4.
3. 19. Leather fastenings are also alluded to in Ait.
Br. v. 32. Brahman butchers are well known, even in
the Buddhistic period.(2) The formal law-books permit
the eating of many animals, birds, and fishes,
although they denounce the sin of eating meat (see
particularly Gautama,
----------------------
1. For the rule, see the Patimokkha and Rhys-Davids
on the Questions of Milinda; for the case of
Godhika, Warren. HOS 3, p. 381.
2. Compare Jataka No.495 (Fick, Sec. Glied, p.141).
Compare also the casual allusion to a butcher-shop
in Jat. No.330. In Jat. No. 423 a Brahman lives
by hunting deer.
p. 457
xvii, Baudh. xii, and Manu v). But perhaps casual
allusions reveal more than do the law-books.
Convincing, for example, is Tandya Br. xvii. 13. 9:
"Clothed in a fresh garment he comes up from the
initiation-bath and during four months neither eats
meat nor has intercourse with a woman." That is as
much as to say, when not in a state of special purity
one is expected to eat meat. Compare Sat. Br. x. 1.
4. 13.
Similarly, although the Buddhist accepts and
further promulgates, in his own decrepit dialect, the
law "not to kill and not to cause killing," it is
evident that the law, if not late, was at first not
taken very strictly. Possibly, just as the Brahmanic
classes ('castes') were recognized, but without the
Brahmanic rigidity, which did not usually distinguish
between letter and spirit, so Brahmanic morality was,
as an inheritance, not disregarded; but at the same
time it was not so narrowly interpreted. Among the
many things which, according to the Buddhists'
scriptures, "people" (that is, non-Buddhistic people)
objected to in the conduct of the Buddhists was
disregard of the life of sentient beings. According
to the same indisputable testimony, people once found
a Buddhist friar killing --of all animals --a calf,
and several times they complained that "followers of
the Buddha" hurt and killed living things. Even as an
artistic background to the introduction of stricter
rules, these tales, preserved in the Buddhists' own
books, can scarcely be supposed to be made of whole
cloth. There was some reason for the tale and for the
introduction of the more stringent rule. And the
reason was probably that, while Buddha really
endorsed the rule Na hanaye na ghataye, "Let one kill
not, nor cause killing," neither he nor the early
Buddhists interpreted it so stirictly as the Brahman
was inclined to do. It is very seldom, for example,
that we find the addition "nor approve of others
killing" (Dhammika Sutta). To the Buddhist of the
early days, meat was not forbidden, though it was a
work of supererogation to abstain from it. Meat was a
delicacy and it was not proper for an abstemious
friar to indulge in any delicacies. On the other
hand, to take a vow not to eat meat was unusual; it
was distinctly an extra effort in 'acquiring
merit.'(1) The house-holder is
----------------------
1. The Patimokkha prohibits meat and fish merely on
the ground that they are delicacies. The rules for
novices contain no injunction against eating meat.
On the early usage among the friars, see Professor
Rhys-Davids' Buddhism, p.164.
p. 458
distinguished from the ascetic in this, that the
latter has no wife and does not destroy life, while
the former has a wife and does destroy life (Muni
Sutta). The rule of the 'King of Glory' is not a
narrow one against meat; it is one of extreme
liberality, (Eat as you have been accustomed to
eat.'(1) There is a whole sermon devoted to the
expansion of the text, 'defilement comes not from
eating meat but from sin' (Amagandha Sutta), which,
as it seems to me, rather implies that meat was
pretty generally eaten (though the practice was
looked upon by the stricter sort as culpable) than
that it was not eaten at all. Buddha himself
(perhaps) died of eating pork, the flesh of a wild
boar, an idea so abhorrent to later Buddhism that the
words sukaramaddava, 'boar-tender' (-loin? ) was
interpreted either as a sauce or as a vegetable eaten
by a boar; some said bamboosprouts, other said a kind
of mushroom, although no sauce or vegetable is known
by the name of 'boar-tender.'(2)
It is in the light of such facts as these that
the oft-repeated rule " not to keep a store of raw
meat" is to be interpreted. The rule is generally
given in connection with other purely sumptuary
regulations, such as not to keep a store of raw rice,
and far from seeming to prohibit meat it appears to
imply its use, the real prohibition being not against
meat (any more than against rice), but against the
possession of a superfluous store. Thus in the
Gandhara Jataka, No. 406, it is said that a store of
salt and sugar even for one day, punadiva, used to be
condemned, but now Buddhists hoard even for the third
day.
Notable examples of freedom in respect of eating
meat are to be found in the Mahavagga, which gives
other illustrations of liberality. Thus, as to the
other, we are told that, in the northern country, for
Buddhists to bathe more than once a fortnight is a
sin, but in the southern country they may bathe more
frequently, because it is the custom of the country.
Here there is no climatic necessity for the change,
since what is called
----------------------
1. Literally, " Ye shall eat as has been eaten"
(Mahasudassana Sutta).
2. Compare the Questions of Milinda, iv. 3.22 and the
discussion as to bamboo, mushrooms, or sauce,
Sacred Books of the East, xxxv, p. 244. Boar flesh
is common village-meat. Compare what the pigs sap
in Jat. No. 388: mamsatthaya hi posiyamase, " we
are fattened for our flesh" (p. 289), and further
references below, p. 462. Still, some plant-names
begin with 'boar-,' and Buddha ought to have the
benefit of the doubt.
p. 459
'northern' and 'southern' is practically in the same
clime. A still better case is afforded by the similar
regulation as to coverlets. In the northern and
middle part of the country, because it is there
customary to have coverlets made of vegetable matter,
the Buddhists are to follow this custom; but when
they go south, where (as in Ujjain) people use animal
skins as coverlets, there they may use animal
skins--a tacit condonation of the slaughter of
animals. As a medicinal remedy the Buddhist may take
intoxicating liquors(1) and the flesh and blood and
fat of bears, alligators, swine, and asses. But a
rule found in the same work, vi. 31. 14, goes much
further than this and really gives the gist of the
whole matter in permitting the use of meat, if not
killed for the express purpose of feeding the
Buddhist. The same rule holds as to fish. The
Buddhists may eat it if they "do not see, do not
hear, do not suspect" that the fish was caught
especially for their use (ibid.). Elephants' flesh
and that of horses may not be eaten in time of
famine, but this is because they are parts of the
"attributes of royalty";(2) nor that of dogs and
snakes, but because such meat is disgusting.
Absolutely forbidden at such a time is only the flesh
of human beings(3) and of other carnivora (ib. vi.
23. 9ff.).
In regard to hurting sentient things, Brahmanism
holds theoretically that even trees, plants, and
grasses are kinds of animals. They differ only in
being stable (fixed) instead of mobile; but a long
argument which I have cited elsewhere from the Great
Epic shows that plants really see, hear, feel, and
smell, as well as possess the more obvious sense of
touch, and that, therefore, they are living,
conscious things, endowed like other animals
----------------------
1. A century after Buddha's death the Buddhist church
(according to tradition, Cullavagga. xii. 1)
discussed the question whether it was per-missible
to drink unfermented toddy. The Buddhist was a
teetotaler, as was (ordinarily) the Brahman priest,
but in this regard the church as a whole appears
to have been much stricter than the orthodox
Hindus (not of the priestly caste), who have
always been addicted to intoxicants. Even Brahman
priests, north of the Nerbudda, were rum-drinkers.
Baudh. I. 2. 4.
2. Compare Jataka No.397, p.322, assa nama rajabhoga,
"horses are kings' property."
3. Cannibalism has left its trace in India in the
stories of flesh-eating Yakkas and Pisacas, native
of the Gilgit region (Dr. Grierson, in JRAS.
Jan. 1906; Jataka, 537).
p. 460
with their own part of the anima mundi. This,
sociologically, is the older view as contrasted with
that of the Buddhists, who hold that a tree, for
example, is 'conscious' only as containing a living
being (a dryad). Plants in themselves possess only
one organ of sense (feeling). So there is naturally
less horror of injury to plant-life (as plant) among
Buddhists than among non-Buddhists (the Brahmans and
their followers),(1) though rebirth as a plant is
more a theoretical possibility than an actual
probability to both parties of believers in Karma.
According to a rather late compendium of heresies,
the Brahmajala Sutta, the Buddhist recluses, despite
the tightening bonds of conventional friarhood, still
continued to injure growing plants, though it was
wrong to do so, as it was wrong " to accept raw meat
" and to kill living things. This reveals that raw
meat was accepted often enough to make it worth while
to animadvert upon the practice. But even this Sutta
(like the rules for novices) does not prohibit the
eating of meat.
In the Edicts of Asoka there are several
injunctions against cruelty, but it is ordered merely
that (even for sacrifice) no animals be killed "in
future, " with a recommendation to respect the
sacredness of life. Yet it is evident from the Fifth
Pillar Edict that the killing of animals was not
unusual. Certain animals in the twenty-seventh year
of Asoka's reign were-made exempt from slaughter, as
were "all quadrupeds which are not eaten or otherwise
utilized by man," a clear intimation that previously
the slaughter of animals was not uncommon and that ''
the more complete abstention from injury to animate
creatures and from slaughter of living beings" was,
as proclaimed in the Seventh Pillar Edict, brought
about by Asoka, that is, a couple of centuries after
Buddha's death.(2)
----------------------
1. There is, unfortunately, no common name for the
Brahmanized horde as there is for the followers of
Buddha. I have sometimes for the horde used
'orthodox,' as the Brahmans (i.e. the priests) use
heterodox ('unbelievers') especially of the
Buddhists; but the orthodox were anything but a
united fold, though they called themselves all, as
against Buddhists,'believers' On plants as 'having
only one organ,' see Mahavagga iii. 1.2.
2. The Edicts, howerer, are not for Buddhists alone
but for all the realm and in this particular may
be aimed against Brahmanic (now heterodox! see the
last note) rather than Buddhistic practices. Never-
theless, as no party distinction is made it may be
presumed that the Buddhists also needed a stricter
rule. In connection with Brahmanic practices, it
must be noticed that beef-eating in the
Mahabharata, though common, is confined to
ceremonial (sacrificial) consumption.
p. 461
The Jatakas contain numerous instances revealing
great freedom in respect of flesh-eating. For
example, the Bodhisat as Sakka, in the Kumbha-Jataka,
forbids the use of intoxicants, but permits the
enjoyment of flesh (mamsodanam sappipayasam bhunja;
No. 512, p. 20). So in Jat. No. 528, p. 235, the
Bodhisat as a mendicant, mahabodhiparibbajako, eat
the flesh of a monkey, makkatamamsam khaditva, and
uses its skin as a robe, though only in order to
inculcate a lesson. In its Sanskritized form, in the
.jatakamala, this monkey appears as an illusion
(perhaps because of the audience; much as the "fatted
calf" is discreetly omitted from another parable in
India at the present day) and the Bodhisat merely
"removes a skin made by himself" and then wears it,
after causing the flesh to disappear (carma'paniya
sesam antardhapayam asa; sa tannirmittam vanaracarma
bibhrat, etc. HOS. 1, p. 147, 1. 19). That the deer
is a warrior's natural food is admitted in a casual
remark addressed to a priest, Jat. No. 483, p. 273,
annam migo brahmana khattiyassa; but though a king
hunts it is meritorious to renounce the sport and
devote oneself to charity. In No. 504, p. 437, the
king hunts not only deer but wild boar,
migasukaradayo vadhitva, and eats broiled venison,
angarapakkam migamamsam. In No. 315, the Bodhisat
gets a wagon-load of venison as a gift; but he takes
the hunter from his cruel occupation, luddaka-kamma.
In No. 12, a king is persuaded to stop killing deer
and all other animals. To eat the flesh of a golden
peacock, moro, which gives eternal youth and
immortality (ib. 159 and 491) is perhaps too great a
temptation to allow of its being cited as an example;
yet the peacock was forbidden food either to the
Brahman (Baudh. I. 12. 7) or to the pre-Asokan
Buddhist (v. note, loc. cit. S.B.E). Jat. Nos. 451
and 496 reveal that meat-eating is almost a matter of
course, even on the part of the Bodhisat, who in No.
199 eats beef, gomamsam; while the forest-ascetic
(No. 496, p. 371, st. 280) says "I eat meat," just as
he speaks of eating jujubes, lotus, etc.: sakam
bhisam madhum mamsam badaramalakani ca, tani abhatva
bhunjami atthi me so pariggaho. In the introduction
to the Sulasa Jataka, No. 419, we have a scene
depicting a pleasure-garden, where thieves and
servants indulge in fish, flesh, and intoxicants,
macchamamsasuradini, which shows the vulgar
popularity of flesh- food. But in No. 436 a noble
lady of Benares is fed on ghee,
p. 462
rice, fish, and flesh (p. 527, 1. 22) by the demon
who would woo her. Compare No. 434, where meat is
eaten as a dainty. Large bags of leather,(1) mahante
cammapasibbake, to hold money, are referred to in No.
336. Leather is used to make chariot-harness (No. 22)
and the clothing of a mendicant, cammasatako
paribbajako, in No. 324. Roast pig is used to
celebrate a marriage-feast (Nos. 30 and 286) and
roast lizard is recognized as good food (in No.
333);though it is a false Buddhist ascetic,
dussilatapaso, who in Nos. 138 and 325 is fond of
such diet. But crow's meat is sent (as earnest of
better) to the Bodhisat by the king in No. 214, and
in No. 220 the scholiast tells a story (to illustrate
a Jataka verse) which implies that a king regularly
ate meat (animals might be slaughtered in Benares any
day except on fast-days). No. 241, p. 245, even notes
the occasion on which, according to tradition, men
who had eaten all the fresh meat they could, first
began to dry it: tasmim kila kale vallurakaranam
udapaditi vadanti. A very good example of the casual,
matter-of-course way in which meat-eating is referred
to will be found in Jataka No. 106 (p. 417), wherein
a young man is advised by his father, the Bodhisat,
not to marry, simply because he will have to run
errands for his wife: "When she wants to eat fish or
meat or has need of ghee or salt or rice, etc." (and
sends you to do her errands), yada macchamamsadini va
khaditukama bhavissati sappilonatanduladihi va pan'
assa attho bhavissati. Here the worldly fat girl is
imagined as eating meat as naturally as salt, etc.
The whole matter of meat-eating is epitomized in
the verse ascribed to the Bodhisat in the Telovado
Jataka (No. 246):
bhunjamano pi sappanno na papena upalippati,
that is, according to the context, if one who has
divine wisdom eats fish or meat, even when he knows
it is prepared for him, he does no wrong.(2) Not
meat-eating per se, not the fact that meat
----------------------
1. The common use of leather, as Prof. Bloomfield
remarked when this paper was read, has been
recently exemplified by excavations made in the
Northern deserts. Leather nooses are made in Jat.
206 (p. 153).
2. In the exaggerated language of the Bodhisat, one
may even eat the flesh of the donor's wife or
child. Only the slayer is sinful, not the eater.
The comment is: samamsakam bhattam adasi... samano
Gotamo janam uddissa-katam mamsam bhunjati, "He
gave meat-food Gotama the ascetic knowingly eats
meat prepared especially for him." Buddha here
accepts in full the precepts of the Bodhisat.
p. 463
was prepared especially for the eater, not even the
fact that the latter knows of the circumstances,
makes the eater guilty of sin. But he must eat with
no evil in the heart, no indulgence of appetite.(1)
With the same liberality, which distinguishes the
ethics of Buddha from that of his ascetic rivals, we
find the rule that no evil Karma attaches to an act
of unintentional wrong- doing, as laid down in the
Kuru-dhamma of Jataka No. 276 (p. 377), acetanakam
kammam na hoti, the Brahmanic rule being that there
must be expiation for unintentional as for
intentional sin.(2) Devadatta, Buddha's rival,
permitted no eating of flesh-meat; Buddha permitted
it with restrictions as to the spirit in which it was
eaten. In other words, early Buddhism was opposed to
this form of asceticism as to other austerities,
which in themselves are valueless.(3)
The great distinction between killing and eating
may seem rather pharisaical, but it existed. To kill
an animal, to be butcher, fowler, or fisher, was
wrong, and to connive at slaughter in order to
gratify appetite was also wrong.(4) But when the
beast had been killed without prior connivance on the
part of the Buddhist the flesh might be accepted and
eaten. The early Buddhist seems to have thought that,
as the animal was dead anyway, he might as well make
use of it and did not trouble his conscience with
questions of 'tainted' offerings. If uncommonly
ascetic he might refuse it as being a delicacy, but
not because meat as meat constituted sinful diet.
Probably the later accession of Brahmanical converts
tended to the greater strictness of the Buddhist in
this regard, until he came to say
----------------------
1. Compare the passage (cited by Mr. Rouse at this
place in his translation) from Hardy's Manual,
p.327: " Those who take life are in fault, but not
the persons who eat the flesh. My priests [in
contrast with those of Devadatta] have permission
to eat whatever is customary to eat in any place
or country, so that it be done without the
indulgence of appetite, or evil desire." The
Cullavagga on this point, vii. 3.14, mentions only
fish, but the contention is the same.
2. Compare with this No. 528 (p. 237): akamakaraniya-
smim kuv-idha papena lippati. For the Brahmanic
rule, see JRAS. July, 1906, p. 584.
3. See the Majjhima Nikaya, pp. 77-8, for a catalogue
of useless austerities.
4. Compare Jat. No. 506 (p.458), where the king-snake
refuses to eat frogs especially killed for him,
with the idea "n'esa mam nissaya maressatiti'' (na
khadati), "not for my sake shall he kill."
p. 464
with St. Paul 'If eating meat my brother do offend I
will eat no more meat.' The theory of transmigration
had, I imagine, little to do with the matter either
with Buddhists or with Brahmans; though Buddha admits
that a man may be reborn as an animal, for, in
speaking of the death of a perfected saint, he
couples together, as the fruit of such saintliness,
the destruction of "hell and rebirth as an animal."
The Jatakas, too, recognize man's rebirth as a beast,
but these are not of the earliest Buddhistic era,
and, generally speaking, the primitive Buddhist is
reborn as man and, if not, he is more likely to
reappear as an unfathered divinity in consequence of
virtue than as an animal in consequence of evil.(1)
At any rate, man's rebirth as an animal (with a
possible cannibalism) is never suggested as a reason
why a Buddhist should not eat meat, although the
Brahmanic view was that the animal later would
eventually take revenge by eating (in another life)
the former eater. Yet even here the idea is not that
one should abstain from · flesh through fear of
eating a reincarnated relative.
To take life, in distinction from eating meat,
results in going to hell or in rebirth either as an
animal, a ghost, pettivisaye, a demon, asupakaye, or
a human being of short life, appayukasam- vattanikam
(hoti ti, 'said the Bodhisat'), Jat. 55 (p.275).
----------------------
1. On the knotty question as to how a future Buddha
could be born as an animal, cf. Jatakamala xxxiii.
st. 3. Despite his sufficient wisdom dharmasanjni
'pi, he had acquired "bits of (evil) Karma,"
karmalesans tans tan samasadya, which reduced him
to a beast. The Bodhisat himself explains rebirth
in animal form as due to neglect in a previous
life to perform good works (kusalakammassa
akattata), as he says Jat.31 (p.205, lines 1 and
7, to Sujata): tvam pana kusalam akatva
tiracchanayoniyam nibbatta. The same question
arises in regard to the sins committed by
Bodhisattas, such as reverting to sensuality (Jet.
251), keeping and knocking down his wife (No.
199), seducing a girl (No. 62), or even leading a
band of robbers. In the last case the Jataka-maker
ascribes such faults rather vaguely "to the
stars,?' nakkhattadosena, Jat, No.279 (p. 389),
apparently forgetful of the Bodhisat's own words,
kim karissanti taraka(No.49, Nakkhatta-Jat.).
Rather an interesting statement is made in Jat.
431 (p.499), to the effect that on some
(unexplained) occasions, ekaccesu thanesu,
Bodhisats may destroy life, commit adultery, and
drink intoxicants, sura; but they may not tell
deceitful lies, musavado, which destroy the
reality of things. Truth is the highest virtue. In
mediaeval Sk. literature abstention from meat is a
sign of virtue, as in the Hitopadesa, where, more
specifically, eating meat ''on the Lard's day" (1.
3) is unlawful.