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Ophelia 
Embodiment of Reason
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Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 1277
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Location: France
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 Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 12:16 pm Post subject:
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| As late as AD 350, according to Prakash " flesh of various animals" was served to brahmans. |
Harris documents this, and there are a lot of documents on the net that cite holy texts to support this.
One of the more striking sentences in this chapter are the first lines:
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| In India today only untouchables freely partake of red meat. Observant high-castes Hindus limit their diets to vegetable foods and dairy products. To eat meat is always undesirable, but the worst of all is to eat beef. |
I didn't know about beef-eating being one of the characteristics of untouchability. I had only remembered the part about being sweepers and cleaning latrines.
Also-- and this is when reading Harris can be frustrating-- what exactly does he mean by "High-caste Hindus"? I'd want to know which castes are considered high and low caste, which castes eat meat, where one draws the line, and since castes are also divided into subcastes... The answer is usually that writers are busy people (or want to be entertaining) and why don't I look it up for myself: I did, vaguely hoping that I'd be given the names of the main castes and told each ones eat beef... No such thing happened, but I learnt quite a few things in the process of looking up the very touch and amazingly complex subject of beef and castes in India. |
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Thomas Hood
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Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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Location: Wyse Fork, NC
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| Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 12:19 pm Post subject:
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Harris never had a pet cow. Let me tell you, when you're five years old and look up into those beautiful deep eyes on a frosty morning with a cloud of smoke coming from those large feminine nostrils, it's a mystical experience better than the Virgin Mary in a motorcycle scrape. They you know why cows are holy. Most of the persons I knew from that time are dead. The only one I get teary-eyed about is Valentine.
Tom |
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Ophelia
Embodiment of Reason
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Joined: 25 Nov 2007
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| Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 1:01 pm Post subject:
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I understand Tom.
I've always been grateful that I wasn't in a situation when I had to eat animals who lived near me, as people on farms used to do.
Harris does write about animals and pets though, briefly.
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| High-caste Hindus feel about eating beef as an American feels about eating the family poodle. |
We don't eat the animals we keep as pets-- although my Mom tells me that during WWII there were no cats and dogs to be seen in Nantes where she lived, so apparently they had all been eaten.
His point is that there was a specific time in the Hindu religion when eating beef was made taboo, which suggests it had nothing to do with the religion itself. Just as pork had been forbidden for health reasons in the Middle East, it had become necessary to forbid beef eating in india. The decision-makers obviously felt that it would be more respected if it was more than just mortal law and was incorported into religion-- and religions have two way of doing this: taboo as abominable and disgusting, or taboo as holy.
Harris makes an interesting difference between cows and oxen in India.
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| Despite all the fuss made about the holy mother cow, oxen are, in fact, treated much better. They are kept in stalls, fed by hand (...) to ensure that they are strong and healthy. Cows, on the other hand, are treated the way American Indians treat their dogs or the way European farmers used to treat thgeir pigs. They are the village scavengers. They are let loose to roam around the village to pick up whatever scraps of garbage they can find. |
At first I found it hard to picture holy cows (or any other cows) as village scavengers, and I also thought of the cows I see in France , in fields or on film in their stalls, and this drew a total blank. So I checked, and yes, I found more information confirming this: "holy" is to be as understood as "not eaten", but that doesn't mean they are fed. I used to think the very thin cows we saw walking about cities in documentaries did not belong to anybody, but often they do, and the owner just turns them loose in the morning and lets them graze or eat what they can-- one document listed all the things that had been found in the content of a cow's stomach, things I had no idea they could eat. |
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Ophelia
Embodiment of Reason
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Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 1277
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Location: France
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 5:21 am Post subject:
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Chapter 12: "In India today only untouchables freely partake of red meat".
This is an excellent sentence to attract the reader's attention at the beginning of the chapter, but is it true?
So much has been written on the subject that it seems unlikely one can answer just from information read on the web.
I can understand why brahmins , who could afford meat, would choose not to eat it, but does it follow that untouchables, who are outside the caste system, and are among the poorest people in India, can afford to eat meat?
My impression is that there is no clear-cut answer.
Here is a reference to an article from "The Hindu" published in 2001.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/08/14/stories/13140833.htm
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It is too well known to recount that these Hindutva forces confer the status of mother to the cow. Currently 72 communities in Kerala - not all of them untouchables - prefer beef to the expensive mutton and the Hindutva forces are trying to prevail upon them to stop the same. (...) With the construction of Hindutva ideology and politics, in response to the rising Indian national movement, the demand for ban on cow slaughter also came up. In post-Independence India RSS repeatedly raised this issue to build up a mass campaign but without any response to its call till the 1980s.
While one must respect the sentiments of those who worship cow and regard her as their mother, to take offence to the objective study of history just because the facts don't suit their political calculations is yet another sign of a society where liberal space is being strangulated by the practitioners of communal politics. We have seen enough such threats and offences in recent past - be it the opposition to films or the destruction of paintings, or the dictates of the communalists to the young not to celebrate Valentine's Day, etc., - and hope the democratic spirit of our Constitution holds the forte and any threat to the democratic freedom is opposed tooth and nail.
Prof. RAM PUNIYANI |
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Ophelia
Embodiment of Reason
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Joined: 25 Nov 2007
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 5:53 am Post subject:
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Reminder: the caste system. Here is one page I find clear:
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The Religious form of Caste System
In Hinduism there exists four castes arranged in a hierarchy. Anyone who does not belong to one of these castes is an outcast. The religious word for caste is 'Varna'. Each Varna has certain duties and rights. Each Varna members have to work in certain occupation which only that Varna members are allowed. Each Varna has certain type of diet. The highest Varna is of the Brahman. Members of this class are priests and the educated people of the society. The Varna after them in hierarchy is Kshatria. The members of this class are the rulers and aristocrats of the society. After them are the Vaisia. Members of this class are the landlords and businessmen of the society. After them in hierarchy are the Sudra. Members of this class are the peasants and working class of the society who work in non-polluting jobs. The caste hierarchy ends here. Below these castes are the outcasts who are untouchable to the four castes. These untouchables worked in degrading jobs like cleaning, sewage etc.
The first three castes had social and economical rights which the Sudra and the untouchables did not have. The first three castes are also seen as 'twice born'. The intention in these two births is to the natural birth and to the ceremonial entrance to the society at a much later age.
Each Varna and also the untouchables are divided into many communities. These communities are called Jat or Jati (The caste is also used instead of Jat). For example the Brahmans have Jats called Gaur, Kokanastha, Sarasvat, Iyer and others. The outcasts have Jats like Mahar, Dhed, Mala, Madiga and others. The Sudra is the largest Varna and it has the largest number of communities. Each Jat is limited to professions worthy of their Varna. Each Jat is limited to the Varna diet. Each Jat members are allowed to marry only with their Jat members. People are born into their Jat and it cannot be changed.
This is the how the caste system is supposed to be in its religious form. But in reality it is much more complicated and different from its religious form. |
I gather from this that when authors refer to "high-caste hindus" they mean brahmin, Kshatria and Vaisa, "low-caste Hindus" being the Sudra.
http://adaniel.tripod.com/confusion.htm |
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Ophelia
Embodiment of Reason
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Joined: 25 Nov 2007
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Ophelia
Embodiment of Reason
Silver Contributor
Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 1277
Gender:
Location: France
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 7:28 am Post subject:
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One of the most interesting doculents I've found is:
Untouchability, The Dead Cow And The Brahmin (1949)
by B.R. Ambedkar
http://www.countercurrents.org/dalit-ambekarbeef050703.htm
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| In the first place, we have the fact that the Untouchables or the main communities which compose them eat the dead cow and those who eat the dead cow are tainted with untouchability and no others. The co-relation between untouchability and the use of the dead cow is so great and so close that the thesis that it is the root of untouchability seems to be incontrovertible. In the second place if there is anything that separates the Untouchables from the Hindus, it is beef-eating. Even a superficial view of the food taboos of the Hindus will show that there are two taboos regarding food which serve as dividing lines. There is one taboo against meat-eating. It divides Hindus into vegetarians and flesh eaters. There is another taboo which is against beef eating. It divides Hindus into those who eat cow’s flesh and those who do not. From the point of view of untouchability the first dividing line is of no importance. But the second is. For it completely marks off the Touchables from the Untouchables. The Touchables whether they are vegetarians or flesh-eaters are united in their objection to eat cow's flesh. As against them stand the Untouchables who eat cow’s flesh without compunction and as a matter of course and habit. |
This is a very long document which deals, for instance, with the influence of buddhism and the strife between buddhism and hinduism in Indian history-- some of the food taboos could be explained by this clash.
He says that during and just after Buddha's life (circa 562 to 483 BC) buddhism was becoming extremely popular, while the Brahmins had become unpopular because they dis so many animal sacrifices (sacrificing animals which belonged tpo the peasants). The buddhists, however, were vegetarian.
Ambedkar's thesis is that the Brahmins gave up meat entirely in order to do as well (or in some cases, better) than the buddhists and regain influence over the people. Then, other high caste Hindus gave up eating cows in order to differentiate themselves from lower caster Hindus, who then followed the trend set by high caste Hindus until only the Untouchables were still eating beef.
Ambedkar and Harris both aim to show that the taboo against beef was not a religious precept, and it is interesting that they draw two different conclusions. Both are interesting, (Ambedkar's thesis is older and perhaps a little less attractive, but it is well argued) and both are speculations. |
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President Camacho
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Joined: 12 Apr 2008
Posts: 257
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Location: Miami, Fl
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| Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 5:00 pm Post subject:
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Yeah Ophelia, I don't want to share! Less people per square mile means more grazing land available for me to raise my cattle and also for Tom to raise his cattle. I can eat mine and he can hold hands with his - or stare into their eyes, or marry them - whatever. Less people = more resources to go around!
I also didn't know that eating meat was something low-caste Hindus did. I don't know too much at all about them but I can see the 'why' behind it.
The person that refrained from eating their cattle prospered and probably became higher castes? Everyone who made it, naturally looked down at those who ate their cattle because they knew they would most likely die or were at least giving in to temptation. Evil is satisfying the now at the expense of the future - kind of thing. Pure speculation, of course.
I think the lower castes are able to eat the meat because no one else wants to eat it. This wasn't always the case. It used to be that only the rich could eat meat - by making meat a taboo, the value of meat is nil. Now the poor can 'afford' to eat it.
You remember what Harris says about religious sanctions and being dependent on economic forces. I can't remember the quote, or where it was in the book. The point is that if cows were the only food source available tomorrow, the taboo would disappear at about the same time.
Well, I've started to read chapter 15 and I must say that it is another one of my favorite chapters from Harris. I'll post a recap after I'm done. |
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Ophelia
Embodiment of Reason
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Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 1277
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Location: France
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 3:17 am Post subject:
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| Everyone who made it, naturally looked down at those who ate their cattle because they knew they would most likely die or were at least giving in to temptation. Evil is satisfying the now at the expense of the future |
Yes.
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| The person that refrained from eating their cattle prospered and probably became higher castes? |
That would be in an optimistic (= American?  ) version of the story.
In the rural India of the past as I see it, not killing your cattle did not enable you to prosper, but simply to survive-- you managed to be there for the next harvest, and you remained forever a poor peasant, you never moved to another caste either.
Here is a very informative article about the situation of cows in modern India (published in 2004).
http://www.satyamag.com/nov04/hawthorne.html |
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President Camacho
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Posts: 257
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| Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 7:53 am Post subject:
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| Wow. There is no hope for a good life anywhere if you're a cow. |
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