Vegetarianism

Religious vegetarianism, the abstention from meat, and sometimes from all animal products, on spiritual or ethical grounds, is practised across many traditions, though for strikingly different reasons. In some it flows from a principle of non-violence toward living beings; in others from ideas of ritual purity, from ascetic self-discipline, from beliefs about the transmigration of souls, or from a vision of an original or ideal harmony among creatures. The same outward practice thus carries very different meanings depending on the tradition that adopts it, and its scope ranges from the avoidance of certain meats on certain days to a complete and lifelong renunciation of all food derived from the killing of animals.

The practice is most deeply rooted in the religions of India. For Jainism it follows with rigorous logic from the doctrine of ahimsa, non-violence toward every form of life, and Jain vegetarianism extends even to the avoidance of root vegetables whose harvesting kills the whole plant and the small creatures around it. In much of Hinduism vegetarianism is an ideal associated with purity, spiritual advancement and the priestly and ascetic life, and it is bound up with the belief in rebirth and the kinship of all living things.

Buddhism's relation to meat-eating is more varied. The early tradition and the Theravada Buddhism of Southeast Asia do not mandate vegetarianism: monks who beg for their food accept what is given, and the rule forbids only meat from an animal known to have been killed specifically for them. Much of Mahayana Buddhism, especially in East Asia, moved toward vegetarianism as an expression of compassion for all sentient beings, and monastic vegetarianism became the norm in Chinese Buddhism. The traditions thus differ on whether abstaining from meat is required, recommended, or simply one worthy option.

Elsewhere the picture varies again. Some Christian monastic traditions restrict or forbid meat as a discipline of ascetic simplicity, and particular Christian groups have adopted vegetarianism on scriptural and health grounds. The Abrahamic religions in general permit meat while regulating it through laws of clean and unclean animals and rites of slaughter, so that the emphasis falls on how animals are killed and eaten rather than on abstaining altogether. In the modern period religious vegetarianism has increasingly converged with secular ethical and environmental arguments against eating animals, a convergence that has given the ancient religious practice new allies and new framings.