“Verily this, Vâsettha, is the way to a state of union with Brahmâ.
3. “And he lets his mind pervade all parts of the World with thoughts of Pity, Sympathy, and Equanimity.
9. “When he had thus spoken, the young Brâhmans, Vâsettha and Bhâradvâga, addressed the Blessed One, and said:—
‘Most excellent, Lord, are the words of thy mouth, most excellent! Just as if a man were to set up that which is thrown down, or were to reveal that which is hidden away, or were to point out the right road to him who has gone astray, or were to bring a Lamp into the Darkness, so that those who have eyes can see eternal forms—just even so, Lord, has the Truth been made known to us, in many a figure, by the Blessed One. And we, even we, betake ourselves, Lord, to the Blessed One, as our Refuge, to the Truth and to the Brotherhood. May the Blessed One accept us as disciples, as true believers from this time forth, so long as life endures!’”—Buddhist Suttas, Translated from Pâli, by T. W. Rhys Davids. Sacred Books of the East. Ed. by Max Müller, Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1881.
As for the older (sacerdotal) religionism of the Peninsula—that of Brahma—the force of Truth obliges us here to remark that, while the great mass of the Hindus continue to shrink with disgust and abhorrence from the Slaughter-house and from the sanguinary diet of their conquerors and rulers, Mohammedan and Christian, the richer classes, and even many of the Brahmins and priests have long conformed, in great measure at least, to Western dietetic practices; and (the flesh of the Cow or Ox excepted), no more than other religionists do they scruple to violate the laws of their Sacred Books—the Vedas—which, however, are not so humane as the teaching of the great Founder of Buddhism, as preserved in the Buddhist Sacred Scriptures, the Tripataka, being more essentially ritual and ceremonial than its popular off-shoot. Yet there are traces in the sacred writings of Hinduism of a strong consciousness of the irreligionism of feeding upon slaughtered animals, as in the Laws of Manu, their Sacred Legislator, where it is laid down that:—
“The man who forsakes not the Laws, and eats not flesh-meat like a blood-thirsty demon, shall attain good-will in this world, and shall not be afflicted with Maladies.”—(Quoted in the Works of Sir Wm. Jones, vol. iii., 206.)
“The man who perceives in his own soul the Supreme Good present in all beings acquires equanimity towards them all, and shall be absorbed, at last, in the highest Essence—even in that of the Almighty himself.”—Conclusion of the Laws of Manu.
It is superfluous to insist upon the fact that inhabitants of the hotter and, in particular, of the tropical regions of the globe have, as a matter of course, even less valid pretexts for resorting to butchering than have the natives of colder climates; and that proportionally, therefore, is the reprobation to which they are obnoxious. (See, among other recent testimony, that of Shib Chunder Bose in his interesting book—The Hindus as they Are. London: Ed. Stanford, 1881). The writer has usefully exposed the yearly-increasing evils to India from the example of English dietetic habits.