Many major engineering and management institutions who wish to unite all Hindus serve only “pure” vegetarian food in their canteens, which effectively excludes 80 per cent of Hindu communities. Much of this has to do with the fact that funders of Hindu organisations and temples come from affluent mercantile castes whose caste identity is mapped to the food they eat. These castes will fund only “pure” vegetarian enterprises. So, they have no problem with the alcohol, plastic and petrochemical industries, which have nothing to do with meat.
The Vedic texts refer to Indra and Agni seeking flesh of horses and cattle. Such translations trigger many who argue these are Western interpretations, and only the translation of Vedic Brahmins should be accepted. However, if one speaks directly to the actual contemporary Vedic experts in the agraharas of the Godavari delta, who happen to be strict vegetarians and who still perform Vedic yagna, we get to hear how goats need to be sacrificed by strangulation during Vedic ceremonies, and the omentum of the animal and other body parts are integral to the ritual offerings. These Vedic experts are against the use of animal effigies made using flour or use of pumpkins, which is the practice in many temples. They separate the injunctions of the Veda from their personal food choices. Such wisdom and detachment seen in actual Vedic priests is missing in those financers who claim to be upholders of Vedic tradition.
Hindu vegetarians refuse to accept the oldest Ramayana manuscripts, which describe Sita promising to offer meat to the rivers Ganga and Yamuna upon her return from exile. They too argue it is a case of a ResuRRecting faith Devdutt Pattanaik Mythologist, Author, Speaker mistranslation, insisting that the word mamsa, or “flesh,” actually refers to the flesh of a plant, not of an animal. This confuses everyone.
Buddhist vegetarians argue that the Buddha promoted vegetarian food and forced Hindu Brahmins to change dietary habits. These Buddhists become very upset when confronted with the story of how the Buddha’s last meal supposedly contained pork. They claim this is a mistranslation and suggest it likely referred to mushrooms or turnips, certainly not meat.
Debates between vegetarians and non-vegetarians may appear today on Western social media, but in India, this debate is ancient, found in scriptures written nearly 2,000 years ago. One example is found in the Buddhist Amagandha Sutta, which addresses the true meaning of the stench of flesh. In the text, a vegetarian asserts that eating millet, grains, and pulses is dharmic, promoting peace and non-violence. Everyone, he argues, should eat rice, vegetables, and fruits, avoiding the flesh of dead animals that stinks. In response, a Buddha named Kashyapa (there are many Buddhas in Buddhism) states that the real stench of rotting flesh comes from taking life, torture, mutilation, stealing, lying, fraud, adultery, and black magic—not from eating meat. Thus, stench is viewed as a social issue rather than a dietary one.
Most gurus equate sattva guna, or noble qualities, with a sattvic (noble) diet, suggesting that vegetarian food can act as a form of “food magic.” By eating vegetarian food, one supposedly becomes a kinder person or gains positive karma, which leads to moksha. And yet, in the Mahabharata, there is the Vyadha Gita, or the Butcher’s Gita, where a butcher teaches dharma to a mendicant and says that taking care of parents and family and strangers is greater than renouncing the world and restricting one’s diet.
Underlying these interpretations is the belief that vegetarianism is spiritually superior to non-vegetarianism and sets Buddhism and Hinduism and Jainism apart from religions like Christianity and Islam. The debates are increasingly turning towards science. If we stop eating meat, we will prevent climate change, is the argument. No one wants to talk about the role of polluting industries, whose major shareholders in India are more often than not vegetarian mercantile castes. Or the fact that India is amongst the world’s biggest exporters of beef, not milk.
If Muslims have a right to Halal food, then apparently Sanatan Dharma has a right to enforce strict vegetarianism in North Indian pilgrim sites and during North Indian festivals. Clearly this new politically charged Sanatan Dharma of the Hindi belt has no patience with fish-eating Brahmins of Kashmir, Konkan, Bengal, Mithila or Odisha, as well as the Kayasthas, Rajputs and Shudras, not to mention the many pork, mutton, chicken and fish-eating gods and goddesses of the hinterland.