India’s Relationship with Meat—II

Exploring the Evolution of India’s Carnivory from the Shastras to the Guptas

In a previous article we studied the Vedic and post-Vedic positions on meat as food before the Common Era. We concluded with the understanding that meat was far more ubiquitous in the Indian diet at the time than we like to admit today. That the injunction on meat was really a spectrum with some verses prohibiting it all, others allowing some, and yet others allowing it all. Precisely as it is today.

However, this spectrum had already started a slow shift in favor of higher prohibitions toward the end of the Upanishadic period. Even as Yajnavalkya admits to his love for beef, for instance, he still warns us against it, lest one become the bearer of a grave sin and be reborn as a “strange being.” Was this a Shramanic influence? Did the Buddha’s emphasis on nonviolence and karma inform the Upanishadic ideals in this regard? That’s the notion much of mainstream scholarship operates on. It’s therefore a good idea to ascertain if that really is the case. And if at all that weren’t the case, the question one cannot deny that Hindus are visibly less meat inclined today than they were back in the day. There has to be a point where something changed drastically and that point is not the Upanishads.

We know that Hinduism underwent its most significant codification in the early centuries AD—a process often described as the śāstrification of Vedic philosophy. Although it likely began under the Kushans, it reached its fullest expression under the Guptas. This period witnessed the rise of a new body of literature known as the Dharmaśāstras, the most prominent of which is the Mānava Dharmaśāstra, better known as the Manusmṛti.

To understand the status of meat during the Common Era, it is essential to examine Manusmṛti’s view on food. That is our starting point here. For a more comprehensive picture, however, we will also consider how meat was perceived in society under the Kushans, the Śakas, the Guptas, and in the post-Gupta India. Although pre–Common Era dietary practices were discussed in a previous article, we will briefly revisit that period to address one crucial omission—the Mauryas. This will include Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra alongside Buddhist and Jain sources, to finally clarify the question of Shramanic nonviolence in relation to meat consumption.