Cook Drink Discover. Trends Shop Beauty. Environment Innovation. Wellness Fitness. Raising Parents It's Complicated Pets. A majority of Hindus are non-vegetarian, as they have always been Beef and other meats were consumed in Vedic times, and later too by Brahmins. In his book, K. Achaya quotes Brahmin poet Kapilar of the Sangam epoch AD speaking of meat and alcoholic drinks with relish and without fear of being ostracised.
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The essay states multiple views that make for hot- tempered debates about vegetarianism, Indianness and religion, and these are not going to disappear anytime soon. How to use tulsi in everyday cooking By Nandita Iyer. What's next for Britney Spears? Check Instagram.
In Hyderabad, during the month of Ramzan, Muslims eat haleem stew , whether of lamb or beef or chicken, only after they break their fast at sunset iftar and after the evening prayers. But the other communities, including the Brahmin youths, start eating haleem at around 4. A major portion of beef- haleem in restaurants is consumed by non-Muslims even before iftar.
In essence, more non-Muslims consume large quantities of beef than Muslims. The consumption of beef by Christians in India is very little. Culturally, what is being attempted is to use the state—that too, a democratic state—to destroy their food culture, their protein availability and food choice. Choice is very important in a modern democracy. They have become vegetarians over a period of time. These ideas were generated from the later Shaivite tradition with Shankaracharya.
That was in response to Buddhists being beef-eaters and practising certain food restraints. Buddhists were never vegetarians. The real vegetarians were the Jains. But to counter the so-called theory of violence of Buddhists, Shankaracharya started a vegetarian campaign among Brahmins and upper castes.
It was this campaign of Shankaracharya that turned the Brahmins of south India, much before those of north India, into vegetarians. But that was in the past. What is the idea driving this cultural imposition today? Today, south Indian Brahmins—even those educated in modern institutions—remain culturally embedded in their families. Their mindset operates as negatively on food culture as it does on the practice of untouchability.
Even the best of the educated Brahmins or Banias practise untouchability—so deeply ingrained is the idea in them. So the ban on beef is a device to create a monolithic Hindu community? You also have to ask the question: When did the idea of not eating beef and meat become strong?
Gandhi was essentially a Jain; he campaigned for cow protection as well as vegetarianism. If the Dalits were not affected, it was because Ambedkar immediately started a counter-campaign.
When Gandhi began to work around the concept of Harijan and mobilising people around it, he had put in some conditions. Two, they should pray in praise of Ram. Ambedkar realised that what Gandhi was doing was literally converting the Dalits to Hinduism. If a Hindu patient is dying in hospital, relatives may wish to bring money and clothes for him or her to touch before they are given to the needy.
They will wish to keep a bedside vigil — if the visitors are not allowed to go to the bedside themselves they will be grateful if a nurse can do this for them while they wait. Some relatives will welcome an opportunity to sit with the dying patient and read from a holy book.
After death the body should always be left covered. Sacred objects should not be removed. Relatives will wish to wash the body and put on new clothes before taking it from the hospital. Traditionally the eldest son of the deceased should take a leading part in this, however young he may be. If a post mortem is unavoidable, Hindus will wish all organs to be returned to the body before cremation or burial for children under five years old.
Relatives will want to make sure the mother has complete rest for 40 days after birth and they will be worried if she has to get up for a bath within the first few days. This attitude is based on the belief that a woman is at her weakest at this time and is very susceptible to chills, backache etc.
If there is a need to separate mother and baby for any reason this should be done tactfully as she may prefer to keep the baby with her at all times. Some Hindus consider it crucial to record the time of birth to the minute so that a Hindu priest can cast the child's horoscope accurately.
There is no objection to family planning from the religious point of view. However, there may be strong social pressures on women to go on having babies, particularly if no son has yet been born, and you should involve her husband in any discussion of family planning.
In the time of the oldest Hindu sacred text , the Rig Veda c. Like most cattle-breeding cultures, the Vedic Indians generally ate the castrated steers, but they would eat the female of the species during rituals or when welcoming a guest or a person of high status. Ancient ritual texts known as Brahmanas c. It was the Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata composed between B. The Earth assumed the form of a cow and begged him to spare her life; she then allowed him to milk her for all that the people needed.
This myth imagines a transition from hunting wild cattle to preserving their lives, domesticating them, and breeding them for milk, a transition to agriculture and pastoral life. It visualizes the cow as the paradigmatic animal that yields food without being killed. Some dharma texts composed in this same period insist that cows should not be eaten.
Some Hindus who did eat meat made a special exception and did not eat the meat of cow. As I see it, the arguments against eating cows are a combination of a symbolic argument about female purity and docility symbolized by the cow who generously gives her milk to her calf , a religious argument about Brahmin sanctity as Brahmins came increasingly to be identified with cows and to be paid by donations of cows and a way for castes to rise in social ranking.
Sociologist M.
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