DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

136 VRATYAS : BEEF-EATING [5.8
fertility rites, as in AV. 15, did not succeed. The vratya remained by
definition one not amenable to brahmin ritual. The Licchavis received
high praise from the Buddha on his final peregrination. The great
teacher predicted that as long as the Licchavis held to their tribal
institutions, they would be invincible—and so they were.
The Buddhist and Jain monastic orders were modelled upon such tribal
constitutions, quite naturally, seeing that the Buddha came from tribal
Sakyans and the Jain founder Mahavira from tribal Licchavis. The
tribal stamp here parallels the mark teft upon the Church by the Roman
empire. The rising protest against a pastoral life which could not
feed the increasing population so well as plough-cultivation may be
traced even in brahmin works. SB. 3.1.2.21 contains a famous passage
which proves that beef-eating would be a sin, because the gods had
put the vigour of all the world into the cow and the ox. It ends with
the blunt declaration of the imposing Upanisadic sage Vajaiavalkya : “
That may very well be, but I shall eat of it nevertheless if the flesh be
tender “. Beef was a normal article of contemporary brahmin diet, as
appears from AV. 12.4, on the necessity of giving away barren cows
to the mendicant brahmin, who could only have eaten them. If the
(non-brahmin) owner “ roasts the sterile cow at home, whether he
makes a sacrifice of her, or not, he sins agajnst the gods and brahmins,
and as a cheat falls from heaven.” The brahmins meant to preserve their
main source of food and hence their theology, no matter how
uneconomic the pastoral life had become on which both diet and ritual
were based. The great religious teachers arose from tribal ksatriyas
at the same time in the same place, among a host of others founders
of similar sects like Saniaya Belatthiputta, Makkhali Gosala, etc. This
very fact shows that the tribe had reached a state of disintegration.
Society had to be reorganized on a basis that tribal life could not
furnish ; a philosophy and religion (as distinct from ritual) — a
superstructure, in short — beyond that of the tribe was needed by
the most advanced elements to cement the various components together.
An example of the manner in which important discoveries in foodproduction
leave their stamp on the language and ritual may not be out
of place.