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Vegetarianism

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Srikant Sadagopan • November 15, 2001 


Dear Sri Venkatesh and Sri Rajaram
There's no mention whatsoever in any of our scriptures that we **should 
not** cut our plants entirely. Sri Mukundan's summarization about why 
'killing' of plants is permitted, more or less appeals to our present day 
thinking. However, we have always practised killing of the entire plant. 
Harvesting(rice or wheat) is taking off the entire plant(of course by then 
it almost dies up) and cleaning up the lands till the soil is rich in humus 
again. And we have always had to kill spinach and other greens. "Aathi 
keerai" is richly a part of the prescribed menu for our Dwadashi ParaNai.

And Sri Rajaram, the belief system among Muslims is different and why the 
'halal way' among certain Muslims has been discussed before. It is nowhere 
close to Vegetarianism. It's still murder but in a  different way!

Just thought of clarifying. Hope we all view this subject objectively :)
dAsan/Srikant





Message: 8
   Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 13:05:32 +0530
   From: "TV Venkatesh/FXSLF/SEC/SANMAR" 
Subject: Re: [SriRangaSri] Vegetarianism - Plants have life too. (Seek 
Answers)


srImathE rAmAnujAya namaha
srImadh varavara munayE namaha

Dear Members,

It is a well known fact that the plants have life too. Then how can we
justify eating the plants? This is the main question. The answer for this
is simple and two fold.

1. If we cannot eat even plant, what are we to eat. Just common sense
reasoning. The least disturbed consumable is the plant. So, may be this is
the reason that the vegetarians are allowed to eat the plant.

2. Please note that we are not killing any plant, if at all we follow the
AhAra niyamams set by our poorvAchAryAs, strictly. As per the A.N we are
supposed to eat only the vegetable portion and the fruit portion of a
plant, without cutting the plant in entirety (Even incase of plants like
spinach, though we cut the leaves, we are not to fully destroy the plants).
In this way, the plant remains, and we are only cutting the portion that we
are asked to. This could be  the main reason why our A.N states that we
should not eat the roots of the planta as it grows underground, because it
will kill the entire plant.  The most important point here is that if you
pluck the fruit or the vegetable, you are not killing it, but only cutting
of that portion which will go waste if it is not used. So it is permitted

In general to survive we need to eat something and as per the first point
above, eating of the plants is justified and as per the second point above,
we are not killing any living things.

The above are only what came into my mind. If there is anything wrong or
foolish in the above statements, please forgive me.

AzhwAr emberumAnAr jeeyar thiruvadigaLE saraNam
adiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan
Thirumalai Vinjamoor Venkatesh




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