Dear Kumkum Chachi / All,
Few source texts have survived from the Vedic period, which lasted from the middle of the second millennium BCE to the middle of the first. According to the opinion prevailing among modern scholars, ritual animal sacrifice with subsequent eating of the meat was a predominant custom, and the principle of ahimsa (nonviolence) was hardly known or not respected.[22] It must be noted, however, that only members of the priestly caste (Brahmins), i.e. a small part of the population, were entitled to perform such rites, and the sources are silent about the diet of the masses. The earliest unequivocal reference to the idea of nonviolence to animals is in the Kapisthala Katha Samhita of the Black Yajurveda (KapS 31.11), which may have been written in about the 8th century BCE.[23] The Chandogya Upanishad, dated to the 8th or 7th century BCE, one of the oldest Upanishads, bars violence against animals except in the case of ritual sacrifice (8.15.1). The same view is expressed in the Mahabharata (3.199.11-12; 13.115; 13.116.26; 13.148.17)[24] and in the Bhagavata Purana (11.5.13-14)[25].
The Manu Smriti composed between ca. 200 BCE and ca. 200 CE, a highly authoritative Hindu lawbook, contains in its fifth chapter many diet rules (5.5-55). In some passages it defends ritual sacrifice of specific animals and eating of their meat (5.27-44).[26] It claims that such killing is not really violence (himsa), and suggest that it is rather a benevolent act, because the slaughtered animal will attain a high rebirth in the cycle of reincarnation (5.32; 5.39-40; 5.42; 5.44). All slaughter except in the context of ritual is strongly condemned, and the text states that the seller and buyer of such meat, as well as the cook and the eater, are all killers on the same grounds as the butcher (5.44-55, especially 5.48; 5.51).
In the following centuries, the principle of universal non-violence to animals was accepted in wide parts of the population. When the famous Chinese Buddhist monk Faxian visited the Magadha region of India in the early 5th century CE, he found that people abstain from taking life. ... They do not breed pigs or poultry or sell any animal food.[27]
Vegetarianism was (and still is) mandatory for the yogis, both for the practitioners of Hatha Yoga[28] and for the disciples of the Vaishnava schools of Bhakti Yoga (especially the Gaudiya Vaishnavas). A bhakta (devotee) offers all his food to Vishnu or Krishna as prasad before eating it[29] and only vegetarian food can be accepted as prasad.[30]
In the Colonial Era (1757-1947) upper class Indians, especially the Brahmins (poor or not), were vegetarians, whilst poor Shudras (members of the lowest caste) were reported to be mostly non-vegetarians as a result of not having many choices.[31]
Christians who follow Biblical health principles (only a few, such as Adventists, do) that include vegetarianism even today live about 10 years longer than the average American according to research reported by the Blue Zones research foundation, National Geographic Magazine, the National Institute of Health and others. Some later cultures not based on the Bible also emphasize a plant based diet and experience significant benefits from vegetarianism. See: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0511/feature1/index.html http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100.html http://www.nutritionist-world.com/blue_zone_diet.html http://www.llu.edu/info/legacy/appendixc/
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