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learn that 'horses',[1], 'bulls'[2], 'buffaloes'[3], 'rams'[4], and 'goats'[5] were killed on slaughter-benches, sūnā,[6], cooked in caldrons,[7] and eaten. The eating of fishes and birds must have also prevailed because fishing and bird-catching are referred to.[8] In North India there was developed a prejudice against eating the village-fowl, because it feeds on all kinds of repulsive offal; such a prejudice does not seem to have ever risen in South India. In early times there was no sentiment against beef-eating in North India. In the later Vedic age the objection to the eating the flesh of the bull and the cow first arose. Says the Satapatha Brāhmaṇa, 'Let him not eat (the flesh) of either the cow or the ox; for the cow and the ox doubtless support everything here on earth. The Gods spake, 'verily the cow and the ox support everything here: Come, let us bestow on the cow and the ox whatever belongs to other species; accordingly they bestowed on the cow and the ox whatever vigour belonged to other species of animals; and therefore the cow and the ox eat most. Hence were one to eat the flesh of an ox or of a cow, there would be as it were an eating of everything, or as it were a going on to the end or to destruction. Such a one indeed would be likely to be born again as a strange being (as one of whom there is) evil report, such as he has expelled an embryo from a woman, he has committed a sin; let him therefore not eat the flesh of the cow and the ox. Nevertheless Yājñavalkya said, 'I for one eat it, provided that it is tender.'[9] Yājñavalkya Rishi, who probably belonged to the early years of the first millennium b.c. was not frightened by the threat that the eating of beef was tantamount to the dreaded sin of brūṇahatti; hence the virulent disgust at the very idea of beef-eating that is the marked characteristic of the Hindus to-day is less than of three thousand years' standing. South Indians too of ancient times did not seem to have had much objection to eat the flesh of the cow. As was the case with all other things they liked, they had several names for beef, viz., vaḷḷūram[10], sūṭṭiṛaichchi[11], śūśiyam[12], paḍittiram.[13] In later times the objection to beef-eating became violent all through India except among the depressed classes, whose social degradation made them so poor and so incapable of earning enough food that they had no objection to meat of any kind—the flesh of the cow or the buffalo and even the flesh of animals that have died on account of disease. Among the other classes the sentiment against beef-eating developed primarily on account of economical causes. The above is plainly indicated by the remark in the passage from the Satapatha Brāhmaṇa that 'were one to eat the flesh of an ox or a cow, there would be as it were, a going on to the end or to destruction'; besides the need of cattle for agriculture, other reasons were the wide use of milk and milk products in Indian dietary and the moral reason, i.e., the love inspired by the meek and gentle-eyed cow.
The chief cereal used by the Tamils was the paddy nel[14], vari[15], the names of various varieties of which existed, such as śeñjāli[16], śennel[17],
- ↑ A. V. vi. 71, 1.
- ↑ R. V. 1. 164. 43.
- ↑ R.V. v. 29. 7.
- ↑ R.V., x. 27. 17.
- ↑ A. V. i. 162–3.
- ↑ R. V. x. 86. 18.
- ↑ R. V. iii. 53. 22.
- ↑ P. T. Srinivasa Iyengar, Life in Ancient India, p. 49.
- ↑ S. B. iii 1. 2. 21, Eggeling's Translation, ii, p. 11.
- ↑ வள்ளுரம்
- ↑ சூட்டிறைச்சி.
- ↑ சூசியம்.
- ↑ படித்திரம்.
- ↑ நெல்.
- ↑ வரி.
- ↑ செஞ்சாலி.
- ↑ செந்நெல்.
