"On February 18, 1872, a group of Japanese Buddhist monks broke into the Imperial Palace to seek an audience with the emperor. In the ensuing fight with the guards, half of them were killed.
At issue was something the monks considered an existential spiritual crisis for their country.
A few weeks earlier, the emperor had eaten beef, effectively repealing a 1,200-year-old ban on consuming animals.
The monks believed the new trend of eating meat was “destroying the soul of the Japanese people.”
For both religious and practical reasons, the Japanese mostly avoided eating meat for more than 12 centuries.
Beef was especially taboo, with certain shrines demanding more than 100 days of fasting as penance for consuming it.
The story of Japan’s shift away from meat began with the arrival of Buddhism from Korea in the 6th century.
At that time, the Japanese were meat eaters. Venison and wild boar (which was sometimes called yama kujira, or “mountain whale") were particularly popular.
Aristocrats enjoyed hunting and feasting on deer entrails and wild fowl.
Yet Buddhism teaches that humans can be reincarnated into other living beings, including animals.
Meat eaters run the risk of consuming their own reincarnated ancestors: not a very palatable thought.
Buddhist principles of respect for life and avoidance of waste, especially in the case of food, slowly began to shape Japanese culture and seep into native Shinto beliefs.
In 675 A.D., Emperor Tenmu issued the first official decree banning consumption of beef, horse, dog, chicken, and monkey during the height of farming season from April to September.
As time went on, the practice would be solidified and expanded into a year-round taboo against all meat eating.
But the meat ban also had secular roots. Even before Buddhism, meat wasn’t an essential part of the Japanese diet.
As a nation of islands, Japan has always relied on fish and seafood as staples. Additionally, writes historian Naomishi Ishige, “protein was ingested from rice rather than from meat or milk.”
Raising animals is resource-intensive, so Japanese farmers working with limited space in their mountainous island nation largely avoided it.
It was also in the best interest of the country to discourage the eating of useful farm animals, since there were relatively few of them in Japan.
Some mammals were more forbidden than others. According to Ishige, “the Buddhist concept of the transmigration of souls and the taboo on mammal meat became linked, and the belief spread that a person who ate the flesh of a four-legged animal would after death be reincarnated as a four-legged animal.”
One government decree stated that anyone who’d eaten wild goat, wolf, rabbit, or raccoon dog (tanuki) was required to repent for five days before visiting a shrine.
Those who’d eaten pork or venison, however, were required to repent for 60 days.
For eaters of beef and horse meat, it was 150 days.
On the rare occasions that they did eat meat, Japanese people cooked it on fires outside the home and avoided looking directly at their altars afterwards so as not to contaminate them.
Dietary customs began to change faster in the late 19th century. After Emperor Meiji assumed power in 1868, the Japanese government moved to end their two centuries of isolation and adopt Western practices and technology as quickly as possible.
Plus, many believed "that one reason why the Japanese had poor physiques compared to Westerners was that they did not eat meat or dairy products,” writes Ishige.
The Meiji government began to chip away at the ancient dietary taboos. They set up companies to produce meat and dairy products. When the emperor himself ate meat to ring in the New Year in 1872, it went a long way toward convincing the Japanese to abandon their meatless customs. It wasn’t an easy transition.
Devout Buddhists, such as the monks who attempted to break into the Imperial Palace and rural peasants who relied on their animals for farm work, had long accepted the idea that eating meat was a sin."
Sunny Narang Aparna let's look at it fairly , a King's conversion to vegetarian Buddhism got everyone converted by state Fiat , same way when the same royalty ate Beef . There is no plurality there . What we can learn is that no Fiat should be there from either side , let there be plurality of beliefs by communities . I am no one to convert someone to vegetarian by force or to eating meat . I do not use words like natural or unnatural . If eating meat 365 days a year is ecologically harmful then just like we have had rationing we may need rationing of each ones carbon and water footprint , each one choosing their portfolio of consumption. I only believe in the best case negotiated pluralities . I hold no absolute truths . But there are people who do , so we then negotiate positions again. The reality is each community of belief uses power , it's numbers , money , networks to push it's truths . That is why we need those who respect as many positions and can balance them for a moment in time . That's all there is . And if you have a bias , remove yourself from the discussion or say it out . As for me I have no bias pro or anti eating anything , but will not eat many things including dog , horse , monkeys , snakes . In guerilla army training you may eat all . And like my vote , I do not need to tell anyone of my deepest beliefs or choices . Ultimately my choices are between me and my God or Being . I have to live with them. As for social or legal rules , if humans accepted them there would be no judges , police , prison and we know every collective system is also a prison , without exception , for those who see no sense for many of those rules . There is no community without rules or customs or traditions . If you live with them you will either need to obey them or be thrown out or imprisoned . Or build a movement of fellow believers . It's called making a breakaway sect ! So between rule breakers and rebels there are large number of possibilities . As they say the path of Dharma is very unique to each context . If Sanatan Dharma teaches me anything it is some believe this , some believe that , and most follow this , in any moment of time , in some geography , in some community . That's it .
Ayshwarya Vijayendran The overzealous vegan parties want to substitute everything with soy, create an estrogen imbalance, succumb to cancers and they die. The overzealous beef parties eat beef 7 days a week, get cancer and die. Those who take the middle ground and want to live a peaceful life get cancer because of all the environmental decay caused by both these parties and they also die. The world will be a better place sans humans. Animals can finally live.
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