vijayan kannampilly

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Tagore’s Voyage of Discovery

THE late Saul Steinberg once said that "the doodle is the brooding of the

human hand". Every Indian art student would know that the art of

Rabindranath Tagore was, sparked off by the doodlings he made in his

literary manuscripts. Tagore’s calligraphy was exquisite and the doodles

he made stemmed from his desire to turn ugly disordered deletions into

order imposed by rhythm.

To a poet rhythm is natural. For Tagore who grew up in an environment of

music, dance and poetry even before he wrote his first verse, this was

more so. Though Tagore began to pursue the art of painting with passion

only towards the last decades of his life, he had always attempted to

sketch and to "dabble" with painting. The doodling on manuscript

corrections too was an old habit. However, in 1924 the ‘manuscript

correction’ took on a significantly unique form. This happened when he was

working on the Puravi collection of poems while crossing the Atlantic from

Cherbourg to Buenos Aires. During the long voyage Tagore was ill and

despondent. This state of being perhaps explains the strange apparitions

and forms that emerge from the Puravi doodlings.

Despite the fact that the doodlings began on manuscript pages, it would be

silly to see them as a visual expression of a verbal creation. There is no

such correspondence, and the schism between the verbal and the visual

becomes very obvious as Tagore embarks on a voyage of discovery with pen,

pigment and brush. The shores which he reaches and the experiences of the

voyage itself are so very different from the rest of his more well-known

literary works.

Tagore himself was aware of the differences. In a letter written two years

before his death, he wrote: "the picture has about it a sense of brooding

(remember Steinberg?) melancholy.... most of my pictures are like that —

they lack laughter. I do not know why this should be so when I like a good

laugh myself and love to make others laugh. Probably I have a touch of

sadness deep down."

The "brooding melancholy" has been explored by many competent writers on

Tagore. At the time of the early exhibitions of his works quite a few

critics had advanced a psychoanalytic explanation of this strange art.

While all these explorations and explanations have different degrees of

merit, a more surer understanding would be to start from the irrefutable

fact that the art of Tagore was a private, personal act unlike his

literary, sociopolitical works and actions which were in and aimed at the

public domain.

To be sure, Tagore had strongly-held views on art which differed with the

ones held by his artist-nephews, Abanindranath and Gaganendranath. Yet,

Tagore did not see himself as a professional artist. The power of his

artistic creativity and the fame of his literary genius (more importantly,

the latter) were what pushed his personal art into the public domain of

exhibitions and reviews. But at the moment of creation they were always a

personal pursuit for personal reasons. This is why Tagore’s art does not

have an iota of sentimentalism. In his art, he is direct about all the

anxieties and ambiguities which make up human life. While Tagore the poet

touches upon many aspects of the human condition, Tagore the painter

plunges fearlessly into its unfathomed depths.

The personal art of the poet stemmed from his disenchantment with the

potency of words which "may indicate, but do not express (man’s) thought."

The answer, is to "seek other languages-lines and colours, sounds and

movements." This search for another language of expression began as

doodlings to restore rhythm and order to manuscripts. But as the products

of this near involuntary act began to take shape on the page their

formlessness assumed multiple forms and their namelessness had many names.

Tagore, as is well known, did not accept the revivalist credo of

Abanindranath. His outlook on art and other matters was universalist, in

the fullest sense of the term, and profoundly critical of "the cult of

selfish and short-sighted nationalism".

In the arena of art, Tagore believed that Indian artists should

"vehemently deny their obligation to produce something that can be

labelled as Indian art"; on the contrary, they had to broaden their

outlook to encompass the arts of the world and enlarge upon it through

their personal vision. To Tagore, "art is nothing other than man’s

ceaseless endeavour to reach perfection... an attempt to beat the Creator

at his own game." This insistence upon a personal vision which is one of

the corner stones of modernity is what gives Tagore’s works their enduring

appeal and make him the first true modern artist of India. They teach us that

the problem of being an artist in India is to avoid becoming an Indian artist with a capital ' I '; especially in this age where swadeshi is coming full circle with a terrible vengeance.

The Tribune, Chandigarh,Sunday, December 12, 1999

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Cooks, Magicians & Artists…

Vaikom Mohammed Basheer, the Malayalam writer and a unique voice in world literature, once said that the only truly creative people are “cooks and magicians”. He was responding to the award of an honour from a university which described him as a creative genius. Basheer’s sense of humour was well-known and justly celebrated. But the peals of laughter provoked by his humour often concealed profoundly philosophical observations. Creation to Basheer meant to produce Something out of Nothing. All religions hold that the Creator who is Uncreated becomes the Creator by filling the Void or Nothingness. Basheer the writer did not see himself as a Creator since what he created – from Pathumma’s Goat to the lovelorn and unlucky Majeed – already existed and he had only refashioned them in the crucible of his art. The writer’s imagination is not a void; even the imaginary places and people take some sustenance from the soil of everyday life.

The Magician pulls out a rabbit from a visibly empty hat and the Cook produces delicacies by combining ingredients which by themselves exercise a limited appeal on our taste buds. Basheer recognizes the Creator in them because they produce Something out of Nothing. No artist does this; though there are artists, and I am one of them, who use many kitchen implements in their studios. But that is as far as it goes. We do not create like the Cook or the Magician; produce Something out of Nothing.

What on earth then, do we do? In a strictly material sense we put pigments on flat surfaces, model clay or plaster of Paris, or as some audacious members of our tribe do, hang a rope from the ceiling and call it ‘Ganga Descending from the Himalayas’. Anything these days can pass off as ‘art’ because, the flavor of the month is post-modernism which is an aptly vague concept to describe an age that has supposedly lost all reference points of history, culture and faith.

Can there be art which is rootless, which has no reference points? I don’t think so. We are tied by many roots to places, people, culture and history. It is possible to deny them – perhaps even fashionable to do so; but to escape, impossible. The artist can and must reshape the roots, learning from the best teachers, and without forgetting that the clay is from the soil where he has sprung from. This is what I have tried to do.

I have no formal schooling in art. The works of the masters, museums (my ancestors), books and hours of experimentation have been my teachers. What they taught me was that in art, as in life, the resonance of opposites holds the key to everything: man and woman, line and form, verticals and horizontals, and colour against colour. Since I have no single teacher, owe no allegiance to any school of art, nor bear the burden of having to pass any examination, I have the freedom to go any which way I want. With this privilege comes the responsibility to nurture a sense of direction based on the fundamental rules of art making. This has not been easy. Occasionally I cook; that is pleasurably creative. Art making is hard work.

Introduction written for an exhibition at Art Konsult in September 1999, New Delhi.

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WRITINGS

2009-06-06T00:43:00.001-07:00

THE HINDU DIET DEBATE

Food as Health, Ethics, and Social Marker

By Vijayan Kannampilly

The word ‘non-vegetarian’ is a peculiarly Indian usage of the English language. Unlike say, ‘chutney’ or ‘curry’ it has not been assimilated into English. Neither the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (p.1935 and p.3554) nor the Webster Universal Dictionary (p.943 and p.1655) has an entry for the word under the headword ‘non’ or as an antonym for ‘vegetarianism’. This is because the literal meaning of the word implies the total absence of any vegetal element in the diet of a ‘non-vegetarian’. This absurdity is not in common usage in most Indian languages even though it is included as a headword in English-vernacular dictionaries. In Hindi, for example, a ‘non-vegetarian’ is a ‘mamsahari’, a meat-eater, and a vegetarian is a ‘shakahari’, a vegetable/plant eater (Bulcke, p.335 and p.631). Despite these linguistic infirmities, the word ‘non-vegetarian’ is a significant marker in classified ads for brides and bridegrooms, peppers restaurant menus and litters our conversations. We accept this illiteracy presumably because we would be uncomfortable reading a classified ad for a ‘meat-eating’ bridegroom or bride! The discomfort is cultural; its roots lie in the belief that vegetarianism is the mark of the prefect being and those who are non- vegetarians exist outside this ‘select circle of perfection’. The ‘non’ in ‘non-vegetarian’ functions as a mark of ghettoization.

The physiology of the human being negates this belief. We are omnivores and if we were not we would not have become what we are. Unlike herbivores and carnivores, the human beings have less food restraints and thus have to invest relatively less time and energy in finding food, the most basic act of survival (Dorling Kindersley, pp.342-344). The saving translates into leisure, one of the basic conditions for the creation of knowledge and culture. That the other omnivores on earth did not develop in the same manner and have remained practically unchanged over time does not negate the importance of this physiological condition in our evolution. The proof of the argument lies in its opposite: if we were solely plant-eaters or meat-eaters we would have never become the dominant species on earth.

In the sub-continent as elsewhere the diet of early human beings consisted of game, fish and wild vegetal foods (Chakrabarti, pp.87-88). Of the three sources of food the importance of meat cannot be over-stated. The human being requires a protein-rich to get the essential amino acids that cannot be synthesized by the body (Davidson, p.20 and p.584; Oxford, p.241). Meat is not the only source of protein. But at that level of human evolution—the hunter-gatherer stage-- it is the easiest available one. The meat of the animal kingdom thus played a critical role in giving us the muscular and mental prowess, and the social skills to take the great step forward-- from hunting to agriculture, from taking to making food.

But for the larger part of our existence as a species ‘non-vegetarianism’ was the norm. While the domestication of wheat and other cereals in the sub-continent began in the seventh millennia BCE (Lahiri, pp.361-368; Chakrabarti, p.326-329), stone artifacts, most probably used for killing, found in the Pakistani Siwaliks have been “securely dated” to 1.9 million years (Allchin, p.37). Excavations in the Indus Valley sites have yielded a wide variety of animal bones (Achaya, p.144) and third millennium BCE texts from the Tigris-Euphrates Plain speak of a meat inclusive diet (Roux, p.9). Therefore the development of agriculture and the emergence of the great river civilizations in India and other parts of the world did not spell the end of ‘non-vegetarianism’. However the growth of these early agrarian civilizations pushes the majority to turn to vegetal proteins and makes meat a symbol of prosperity mostly confined to the tables of a minority. This was an economic necessity primarily caused by environmental changes.

When the early human being killed an animal for food his only investment was time, skill and tools; his prey was provided by nature. In an agrarian community a critical factor of production, land, comes into the equation. The arithmetic does not favour meat. If the land in question is suitable for either animal or crop farming the latter will be the choice because of the higher yield-- whether the measurement is based on nutritional values, economic units or volumetric scales. In fact the growing demand for arable land depletes forest cover and reduces hunting from a common human activity to an occupation of individuals or groups, and the sport of the privileged. This was especially true of those civilizations that could generate a food surplus because of favourable natural conditions and hence were marked by high population density. Therefore meat farming had a relatively low share (and continues to do so) in the economy of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, the Kaveri Delta, and in the civilizations that thrived on the banks of the Mekong, the Chang Jiang-Huang He system, the Nile and the Tigris-Euphrates Plain, while it has played a major role in North and South America, and Australia after colonization. In both cases population density, among other factors, was (and is) a key determinant.

Though the development of agriculture and dairy farming lays the material basis for evolving a philosophy of vegetarianism, it does not emerge like Minerva either fully armoured or with a singularity of purpose. More than a philosophy what we have in Hindu India is a debate on diet continued over centuries, reflecting the concerns of each particular age, marked with inconsistencies and contradictions, and often centering on food as a social marker. In India the earliest references to diet are found in the four sections of the Vedas—the Samhitas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanisads.

The nature of food is discussed in the Taittiriya Upanisad. It says: “From food created things are born. By food, when born, do they grow up. It both is eaten and eats things. Because of that it is called food.”(Radhakrishnan and Moore, p.59). The concept of food, as that which is eaten and also eats, indicates a living, non- vegetal being, and to that extent is inclusive enough to be labeled ‘non-vegetarian’. Whether this interpretation is absolutely correct or not can be left to scholars of Vedic Sanskrit. However there is other evidence, both literal and linguistic, that indicate the high favour enjoyed by ‘non-vegetarian’ food, especially beef, in Vedic India. In the Satapatha Brahmana the sageYajnavalkya peremptorily ends a debate on the question of eating beef with a matter of fact statement: “I for one eat it provided it is tender” (Walker I, p.278). In fact among all meat, beef was ranked the highest. Hence one of the words for ‘guest’ was ‘goghna’, “one for whom a cow is killed”. Panini the great grammarian derived the word from the root ‘go’, meaning cow (Monier-Williams, II, p.364). The sacrifice was an important aspect of Vedic religious practice and ritual killing of animals—cow, ox, horse, goat and ram—was intrinsic to it. In the sacrifice called sulagava a young ox was impaled and cooked on a spit and the participants ate the meat after making an offering to Rudra (Walker I, p.49-50).

It is in the Dharmasutras and Dharmasastras (dated circa 600 BCE onwards by PV Kane) that we find the critical shift from food that “is eaten and eats things” to food as a social marker, as signs of stigma and status. This movement from the commonsensical to the canonical is marked with inconsistencies and contradictions. There seems to be no basic list of dos and don’ts that are later on added on to or embellished. Instead what we have are many voices in different time periods. But what is interesting is that per se there is no over-riding ban on the consumption of meat, including beef. On the other hand, the cow and the bull are declared to be both holy (as an offering to ancestors) and edible.

In Manava-Dharmasastra, or what is commonly known as Manu Smriti, the issue of eating meat is discussed in a sub-section of Chapter 5. Manu, in keeping with the traditional norms of ideological discourse, first states the views of those who defend the consumption of meat on various grounds: one, the Upanishadic premise that food ‘is eaten and eats’; two, the central role of meat in Vedic sacrifice; and finally, the sensory pleasure that underlies the satisfaction of a natural urge. In his counter-arguments Manu does not rigoursly dispute the first two grounds, an indication that they then had the sanctity of custom and age. He does, however, advise the sacrificant to avoid killing and instead “make an animal out of butter or flour” while performing a sacrifice—an advice which Sankara later emphasised. Nevertheless in the Agnichayana sacrifice performed in Kerala in 1975, the killing of 14 goats by ritual suffocation was seriously contemplated till public outrage forced the sacrificant to adopt the Manu formula. Nearly half the text of the Manu Smriti that discusses the question of eating meat, deals with the pleasure principle. While Manu accepts that “There is no fault in eating meat, in drinking liquor, or in having sex; that is the natural activity of creatures. Abstaining from such activity, however, brings great rewards.” The reward for “abstaining completely from meat” is “endless bliss” because, he who eats meat in this world will be eaten likewise in the next. (Olivelle, pp.139-141; Banerji, pp.263-268.) Manu’s proscription is aimed at ensuring the Hindu’s own well being in this world and the next; it is not driven by any compassion towards another living being. Fear is the key; not ethics.

The other notable text that deals with dietary rules and regulations, and culinary descriptions is the Mahabharata. The epic says that King Rantideva, a descendant of Bharata, the founder of the Bharata-varsha, ‘employed 200,000 cooks in his palace to cook everyday 2,000 head of cattle and other animals’; the menu for Draupadi’s wedding included the meat of buffalo, goat, deer, and fowl; and that the Pandavas offered meat as a mark of great hospitality to the Brahmin priests who visited them (Walker, I, p.142). The consumption of meat as a sign of comfort and luxury is clearly denoted in the question posed by Dhritarashtra to his downcast son, Duryodhana: “…you have come to be the general ruler… and you wear fine clothes, you eat meat with your rice, the finest horses carry you, so why are you grieving…?” (Fitzgerald, p.481.) Though the epic contains an exposition on dietary rules and regulations its ‘non-vegetarian’ flavour comes through. In the twelfth book, the Santi-parva, Yudhishthira asks Bhishma, “what food is clean and what unclean?”, and the latter cites Vyasa’s ban on the “brahmanas” eating the flesh of the bull and duck (Ganguli, III, p76). This answer forms a part of Bhishma’s discourse on kingship and righteous living. The discourse continues in the next book, the Anusasana-parva, and includes an exposition of taboos, ‘table manners’, health instructions, hygiene, and a classification of food that should not be eaten. The prohibitory list includes “the flesh of goats and kine”, “all food that is forbidden in ritual acts”, and the “flesh of animals not slain in sacrifices” (Ganguli, IV, p.202). Interestingly both The Mahabharata and The Ramayana agree that ‘brahmins and kshattriyas’ are permitted “to eat only the five five-clawed animals”. (Fitzgerald, p.582and p.766.) This list of five—“the hedgehog, the porcupine, the lizard, the rabbit, and the turtle”—becomes six in Manu with the inclusion of the rhinoceros. (Olivelle, p.139.) In sum, selective slaughter for consumption and sacrifice is permissible because, “man is the overlord of beasts, an eater of them.” (Fitzgerald, p.582), and all dietary rules are ultimately governed by the ‘desire to live’. Bhishma espouses this philosophy when he tells Yudhishthira, that in the midst of a great famine Visvamitra, the sage, justified his decision to eat a forbidden food, the hind end of a dog, by stating, “Life is better than death…Alive, I shall do Lawful Deeds, and by asceticism and learning I shall drive the impurities away from myself.” (Fitzgerald, pp.537-538.)

None of these texts is ‘history’ in a strict sense but we can still use them to understand the “social assumptions” of the age (Thapar, p.100). First, though Hindu texts do not proscribe ‘non-vegetarian’ food except to prescribe certain restrictions (and beef is not always included in this list), the inconsistencies and contradictions on the issue clearly indicate that it was a lively debate. Secondly, the debate, often centered on taboos and the question of ‘clean’ versus ‘unclean’ food, was in essence an attempt at differentiating people by using food as social markers: you are not just what you ate, but what you ate made you what you are. Thirdly, the ‘non-vegetarian’ question in early Hinduism was not posed primarily on ethical terms. The most famous debate on the right and wrong of killing an animal in Vedic literature was not over the question of ahimsa, but whether blood sacrifice (or any other sacrifice) is effective. Yajnavalkya who was partial to ‘tender beef’ raised doubts about the efficacy of the sacrifice except to make the priests rich (Walker, II, p.612).

With the advent of the Buddha, the criticism of sacrifices in general and the killing of animals in particular sharpened. Contrary to common belief Buddhism does not place any great store on vegetarianism either as a path to salvation or a way of life. The Amagandha Sutta says, “Neither abstinence from fish or flesh…will cleanse a man not free from delusions” (Davids, p.131). Vegetarianism in fact is one among the various austerities (practiced by religious recluses) that are criticized as useless for salvation unless the Eight Principles of the Middle Path are practiced. The dietary practice in Buddhist-majority countries shows that vegetarianism is not a religious requirement for a lay Buddhist. On the other hand monks, nuns and devout followers practice it without making it as the raison d’etre of their faith. The Buddhist approach to diet—both by monks and lay people-- are by and large eminently practical (Davidson, p.955; Auboyer, p.219).

Jainism, on the other hand, has a very rigourous position on diet. It is strictly vegetarian and in its orthodox form extends the definition of non-vegetal to all produce that grow beneath the earth. Much more than brahminical Hinduism it is Jainism that elevates vegetarianism to an unadulterated ethical position. To the Jain all life is sacred hence even the root of a plant should not be eaten because it is essential to its life. With the act of cultivation barred to them by their faith, commerce became the natural economic venue for the Jains.

The impact of Buddhism and Jainism on the Hindu dietary code was significant. The Brahmin tracing his genealogy to sages and priests who were practitioners of animal sacrifice embraced vegetarianism and made it a cardinal article of faith. So closely has this link been forged that today we find it difficult to associate ‘non-vegetarianism’ with a Brahmin despite the textual evidence to the contrary. Sankara who later led the Hindu ‘counter-reformation’ took over so many Buddhist concepts that he was denigrated as a ‘prachchanna-Bauddha’ (crypto-Buddhist) by the Brahmin orthodoxy. Among the changes he brought forward was the substitution of gourds for animals in sacrifices. This theory of substitution did have a traditional sanction since Manu had advised those who got “the urge” to eat meat to “make an animal out of butter or flour” (Olivelle, p.140).

Much before Sankara vegetarianism got royal sanction and followers within the establishment with the adoption of Buddhism as a state ideology by Asoka. But as said earlier, Buddhism does not have a rigid stand on diet. Hence even Asoka did not impose a blanket ban on slaughter for the royal table; instead he limited the number that were killed from “several thousand” each day to “only three” and that too not every day (Auboyer, p.275). Centuries after the end of his empire Asoka’s interdiction of animal food, unlike his edicts on responsibilities and rights, continued to retain an influence: in many of the Hindu monarchies that emerged in different regions of the land the kings “were more or less vegetarian” (Auboyer, p.275). In most cases the kings were not from the Kshattriyas and the throne was a prize that any adventurer could seize, provided he was legitimized through brahminical rituals (Thapar, p.150). The price paid by the ‘new-born Kshattriya’ for this process of sanskritisation was to uphold the brahminical worldview, including, vegetarianism. This was especially true in the South where compared to Buddhism, Jainism was the more dominant faith (Sastri, pp.394-395)..

In some cases the taboos that were debated have a clear economic justification. The attempt to prohibit cow slaughter made sense in a community that had to mainly depend upon dairy products for its protein requirements. On this question too there is no general agreement and it is only by 300 CE that the prohibition on cow slaughter begins to approximate a religious rule (Banerji, p.267). If the ritualisation of the cow is an example of economics coming to the aid of religion, the elevation of the chicken tells another story. In the Manusmriti the domestic pig and fowl are regarded as scavengers and therefore prohibited as food (Achaya, p.41). In the pre-Aryan South this ban was not observed (Kanakasabhai, p.125), and in the North certainly by the time of the Delhi Sultanate or even earlier the chicken was on the table. Today it is the most common of all table meats with 60 per cent coming from poultry farms and the intensive farming, in turn, has opened a Pandora’s Box of pestilence. The social approval given to the ‘unclean’ chicken is both a function of economics and the “natural” desire of a people for meat in a land without a thriving animal food economy.

The early debate on diet was not solely confined to ‘clean’ versus ‘unclean’ food. In the Vedas there is an approach to food as health, as a nutrient. In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad the recommended diet for a couple desirous of a male child is rice cooked with beef and ghee (Walker, I, p.278). In order to shape the character of a baby, different types of meat was added as an ingredient in the first solid food given to it (Auboyer, p.164). Though much of this is in the nature of dicta, by the time the ayurvedic texts of Charaka and Susruta are composed there is an elaborate understanding of the medicinal values of different types of meat. Contrary to current belief ayurveda does not only use herbs; animal and mineral products also feature in its pharmacopoeia and methods of treatment. In ayurvedic treatment diet plays an important role. Ayurveda classifies food by taste (rasa) and property (guna). (Achaya, p.11.) The gunas are three: sattvik, rajasic, and tamasic, connoting serenity and refinement; energy; and coarseness and roughness, respectively. (Achaya, p.229, p.204, and p.246.) Though ayurvedic theory assigns different gunas to the members of the Hindu trinity and hence gives it acceptability, it is obvious that from sattvik to tamasic, from serenity to coarseness, there is a regression in the food consumer’s social status within the umbrella of Hinduism. While most religions have dietary rules for all its members, Brahminical Hinduism is distinguished by its prescriptions and proscriptions for particular segments of its followers, the multitude of castes that are in its fold.

The inordinate caste value placed on vegetal food through the concepts of ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ is the foundation of Hindu vegetarianism. The ethical issue is secondary except in times of great social upheaval as witnessed during the rise of Jainism and Vaishanavism, and in our times the “coming of Gandhi”. The secondary position of the ethical question is exemplified in the treatment of fish as food.

Archeological evidence from the Harappan sites indicates that fishing was practiced (Ratnagar, p.67). But in the early Hindu texts the question whether fish can be eaten does not get a straight answer. The Manusmriti prohibits fish in general but allows some ‘clean’ varieties to be used in rituals. It is unclear whether the participants can partake of the offering (Banerji, p.268). On the other hand, the Mahabharata only prohibits fish without scales (Ganguli, III, p.76). The reality on the ground is that many Hindus who regard themselves as vegetarians eat fish. If vegetarianism was an ethical stance then this is a contradiction because fish are living creatures. The dilemma does not rise in Hinduism because fish are treated as vegetables. The evidence lies in linguistic usage. What is called in English the ‘bone’ of a fish becomes in Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and Malayalam, the ‘thorn’ of a fish. The word for thorn in all these languages can be used both in the context of describing a rose bush or a rohu with the tagging of the appropriate noun (Monier-Williams, I, p.272 & p.801; Bulcke, p.191 & p.564). On the other hand, Mundari spoken by the early inhabitants of India contains over two score words to describe various activities related to fishing. In Mundari fish have bones, not thorns (Bhaduri, p.80). Though Sanskrit and Dravidian languages have absorbed many food words from Mundari (Achaya, p.166) they have retained the thorn rather than the bone for the fish. The logic of this is unclear but the implication is profound: the strange linguistic usage clouds any ethical debate on the right and wrong of eating fish and shifts the discussion onto whether it is a ‘clean’ food.

The view that fish do not have life certainly helped to meet nutritional requirements and satisfy what Manu recognized as the ‘natural desire’ of people for ‘non-vegetarian’ food. The depth of this desire can be gauged from the fact that “only about 20 per cent of the Indian communities are vegetarian” (Singh, p.95). In a Hindu majority country this gives the lie to the proposition that Hinduism is synonymous with vegetarianism and that ‘non-vegetarianism’ is an aberration. The word ‘non-vegetarian’ is an illiteracy that encapsulates the stigmatization inherent in a debate increasingly centred upon food as a social marker, rather than food as health and food as ethics. Far from being a supposedly degraded way of life for those outside the ‘select circle of perfection’, ‘non-vegetarianism’ is an affirmation by the vast majority that they are human. The ‘non’ in ‘non-vegetarian’ is a condemnation of the human condition.

References

Achaya, K.T., A Historical Dictionary of Food, New Delhi, 1999

Allchin, R. & B., Origins of a Civilization, New Delhi, 1997

Auboyer, J., Daily Life in Ancient India, New Delhi, 1994

Banerji, S.C., A Brief History of Dharmasastra, New Delhi, 1999

Bhaduri, M.B., A Mundari – English Dictionary, New Delhi, 1994

Bulcke, C., An English-Hindi Dictionary, New Delhi

Chakrabarti, D.K., India: An Archaeological History, New Delhi, 1999

Davids, T.W. Rhys, Buddhism, New Delhi, 2000

Davidson, A., The Penguin Companion to Food, London, 2002

Dorling Kindersley Science Encyclopedia, London, 1994,

Fitzgerald, J.L., The Mahabharata, Volume 7, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2004

Ganguli, K.M., The Mahabharata, four volumes, (trans.), New Delhi, 2004

Kanakasabhai, V., The Tamils Eight Hundred Years Ago, New Delhi, 1989

Lahiri, N., The Decline and fall of the Indus Civilization, (ed.) New Delhi, 2000

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Originally published in Seminar, October 2006, New Delhi. Revised version.

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