Vegetarianism in Buddhist Sri Lanka

Vegetarianism in Buddhist Sri Lanka James Stewart I want to talk today about vegetarianism in Sri Lanka. But more than that, I want to talk about some of the assumptions we in the west have historically had about dietary practices in Buddhist countries. I want to explore some of the origins of these assumptions and how these assumptions ultimately have an effect on the way vegetarianism ends up being practiced in Sri Lanka today. The interesting aspect of these matters is that it shows how colonialism can have a profound effect not just on the nation being colonised, but also on the colonisers themselves. All of this will help explain some of the different attitudes Buddhists have to vegetarianism in Sri Lanka. As I will explain, Buddhists do not agree uniformily on the question of whether a Buddhist should be a vegetarian, despite the fact that the Buddhist texts absolutely reject any sort of violence, even towards tiny animals.1 Western expectations Slide 2 In keeping with the received fact that Buddhists reject violence towards animals, there is a general belief in the west that Buddhists should also therefore be vegetarians – or, if they are not already vegetarians, they should be. This attitude towards Buddhist dietary practices is apparent in Buddhist inspired cook books authored by Westerners. Consider, for example, Buddha’s Belly: Authentic Flavours from the East which includes a receipe for the Dalai Lama’s momos (Tibetan dumplings), a purportedly vegetarian dish – even though the Dalai Lama is not a vegetarian. In the book 25/31 of the recipes are vegetarian and of the 5 1 Note: all participants names used in this paper are of course pseudonyms in keeping with the UTas HREC requirements. 1 meat dishes, 3 are explicitly written so that they can be prepared as vegetarian. The Lotus Lake Cookbook by the White Conch Dharma Centre is advertised as providing “meatless mains” and contains “gems of wisdom from the Rinpoche himself” therefore appearing to be an authentic account of Tibetan cuisine. In the case of Japanese Buddhism we have, for example, Shojin Cooking: The Buddhist Vegetarian Cook Book (1977) and Three Bowls: Vegetarian Recipes from an American Zen Buddhist Monastery (2000). Another example of this attitude towards the perceived composition of Buddhist dishes is the “Buddha Bowl” or “Buddha’s Delight”, a staple of many Asian inspired restaurants and cafes which is vegetarian dish of Chinese origins composed of tofu, bamboo shoots, vegetables in a broth. It has come, however, to represent the culinary ideal of Buddhism: plain, healthy, meatless, and well portioned. These examples of western cook books implicitly suggest that Buddhism is heavily associated with vegetarianism. Meanwhile, there are a number of books – again, usually authored by westerners – that maintain that Buddhists ought to be vegetarians. A few examples of this are Kapleau’s To Cherish All Life: A Buddhist Case for Becoming a Vegetarian (1982) or Bodhipaksa’s Vegetarianism: A Buddhist View (1999). The argument provided in both books is that the Buddha’s authentic message to his followers is that meat abstention is morally right and necessary given that the Buddha demands that his followers abstain from harming any living creatures including animals. It seems to me, however, that the assumption of these various western parties project cultural assumptions onto Buddhist practice and beliefs that are not necessarily warranted by Buddhist texts or by those who practice the religion. The sacred texts of early Buddhism, supposedly recording the true sayings of the Buddha, record that the Buddha was not a vegetarian, and that he ate meat on at least two occasions. He further justified meat eating explicitly by saying that his monks (not necessarily his lay followers) could eat meat only of it were pure in three 2  ways: that the monk had not heard, seen or suspected that the animal had been Slide 3 killed on his behalf. When confronted by his arch rival, the monk Devadatta, who demanded that the Buddha outlaw meat eating completely, the Buddha responded by first stating that vegetarianism was merely an optional activity for monks, not mandatory, and that he was concerned mandatory vegetarianism would make Buddhism overly ascetic and therefore too similar to the supposedly faulty Jain religion, a religion that valued nonviolence to an extreme degree. Because of the Jain near-obsession with non-violence they were very often so fastidious in their dietary practices that there are reports of Jain monks dying from starvation due to excessive fasting.2 The Buddha was clear that he did not want Buddhism to become the domain of fanatics bent on self-annihilation through dietary deprivation. One of his explicit stipulations was that Buddhism was supposed to be a rational path between extremes and that excessive fasting was overly fanatical. For his troubles, Buddhism has been subject to much criticism over the years from Jains who say that Buddhists do not really take their commitment to non-violence seriously. All of this – the Buddha’s quarrels with his vegetarian Jain adversaries, his quarrels with Devadatta, his rule that meat can be consumed if it is morally pure, and even the Buddha’s own diet – seems to rule out the western assumption that Buddhists must be vegetarians. Indeed, Buddologists and religious anthropologists have time and again pointed out that these conventional western assumptions about Buddhists’ diets are based on faulty premises. Richard Gombrich, in his ethnography of Sri Lankan hill country Buddhism in the 70s, observed that Sinhalese Buddhists were sympathetic to vegetarianism but rarely practiced it.3 He maintained that Buddhists in practice did not connect the first precept to abstain from killing to their own dietary behaviours. Other scholars like Gombrich repeat this same notion: Buddhists is many 2 Basham, p.129. 3 Gombrich, p.305. 3  predominately Buddhist countries are sympathetic to vegetarianism but that does not mean that they are themselves vegetarians.4 I believe that one of the reasons westerners have adopted the notion that Buddhists Slide 4 are enthusiastic vegetarians is due to the history of Indological scholarship and its origins in a western desire to seek out meaningful alternative spiritual teachings that differ from Christianity and Western social norms. This emerged out of particular European fads in the late 19th century such as so called “nature cure” practices that is the historical antecedent to contemporary homeopathy and naturopathy. These nature cure movements were heavily associated with the burgeoning vegetarian scene in Europe that was seen in the late 19 th century as a necessary way to improve one’s health. These same Europeans were interested in other alternative spiritual movements and the colonisation of India and other Asian nations by British forces was now leading to the introduction of a range of new religions and beliefs that these Europeans began to latch onto. Colonists and missionaries in these colonised countries sometimes remarked with shock at the apparent commonality of vegetarianism in Buddhist and Hindu nations. This was perhaps over-emphasized back in Europe and so, in combination with a prevailing desire to find an ideal non- western spiritual ideology, the assumption of the saintly Buddhist vegetarian was born. This burgeoning colonial assumption that Buddhists were vegetarians is summed up by Leela Gandhi who says that this connection was ultimately, “…the preserve of radical (European) counterculture, already possessed of excessive revolutionary aspirations.”5 It may be said that even today many western sympathisers of Buddhism are attracted to the religion for similar reasons that early Europeans found Buddhism appealing, because it offers a radical alternative to conventional European religious traditions. This notion is in fact represented within 4 For example: Ruegg, p.234. 5 Gandhi, p.76. 4  indigenous Buddhist communities who, I have found, regard westerners who seek to understand Buddhism to be those who are naturally ill at ease with the supposed decadence and moral laxity of conventional western establishment traditions. These historical encounters with Buddhism and other Asian religions have had a powerful influence on contemporary notions about what constitutes “authentic” Buddhism even if those notions turn out to be misleading. The fact that vegetarianism in Buddhist nations is less common than we might assume is born out by some of the figures concerning rates of vegetarianism in predominately Buddhist nations: Country Vegetarianism in Main religion(s) Slide 5 population at time of study: India 28.8% Hinduism (79.8%) Taiwan 13% Buddhism (35.1%), Taoism (33%) Australia 11.2% Christianity (42%) China 5% Buddhism (18.2%), Christian (5.1%) Japan 4.7% Buddhism (35%) Sri Lanka 5% Buddhism (69%), Hinduism (15%) Korea 1% Buddhism (22.8%), Christian (29.2%) (Shaded cells are nations where the dominant religion is Buddhism). The rate of vegetarianism in these predominately Buddhist countries is in fact relatively unimpressive and seems to support previous anthropological claims that Buddhist morality has little effect on the adoption of vegetarianism. Australia is one of the highest rated nations for adoption of vegetarianism in the world and is twice that of many Buddhist nations, including Sri Lanka. Taiwan, also a Buddhist country, rates highly as well at 13% of population but this is explainable in part due to 5  idiosyncratic aspects of Taiwanese Buddhism and its specific historical traditions. 6 In general, other Buddhist nations such as China, Japan, and Sri Lanka maintain a rate of vegetarianism that is not much different from developed western nations such as Canada (4%), Spain (4%), and Switzerland (5%). But other western nations have rates of vegetarianism that are double, or more than double, that of their Buddhist counterparts such as Italy (7%), Sweden (10%) and Israel (13%). The reasons for the adoption of vegetarianism in these western nations is a separate matter, but it is clear that the presence of Buddhism in a nation is not a necessary condition for the widespread adoption of vegetarianism nor should we expect the rates to be a great deal higher than secular western counterparts (barring the outlier case of Taiwan). The census data mentioned above, the anthropological observations, the Slide 6 comments about the historical reception of Buddhism in the west, and even the textual studies – all of this might lead us to conclude that any claim that seeks to connect Buddhism to vegetarianism at all should be treated as highly suspect. It may even be suggested that there is no genuine connection between the moral precepts of Buddhism and the practice of ethical vegetarianism. I would say that the scholarly attitude towards such matters has been precisely in this vein. Yet I think there is a risk that scepticism of Buddhist vegetarianism in light of these observations may distort the picture too much. My research in Sri Lanka has suggested that Buddhists do connect Buddhist precepts to vegetarianism, that not all Buddhists put stock in the Buddha’s allowances for meat eating, and that there is a vibrant ethical vegetarian scene and one that resonates with animal welfare convictions that we are familiar with in the West. Sri Lanka therefore provides us with an interesting insight into contemporary ethical food practices in a predominately Buddhist nation. 6 Jones, p.15. 6  Historical considerations This study into Sri Lankan vegetarianism was solely concerned with studying Slide 7 Buddhist vegetarianism in Sri Lanka which essentially involved studying the ethnic majority which are the Sinhalese. The fieldwork was conducted between 2010 and 2012 and it was mostly conducted around the greater Colombo metropolitan area and Kegalle, a smaller rural city in central Sri Lanka. It was a study of contemporary attitudes to vegetarianism and yet there are also significant historical forces that produce and effect contemporary narratives. Sri Lanka itself is an island off the Southern coast of India and was previously known as Ceylon during the British colonial period. Prior to Portuguese colonisation Sri Lanka was ruled by various Sinhala and Tamil monarchs who built flourishing civilisations throughout the island. Sri Lanka has always had a distinct and unique cultural legacy that differs in many ways from its Indian counterparts. At the same time, Sri Lankan culture is heavily indebted to India in a range of different ways: its languages, religions and cultural practices are all inflected in varying degrees by Slide 8 Indian traditions. There is evidence that vegetarianism has had a presence on the island that clearly predates colonisation. The stranded British traveller Robert Knox reports in his journal written around 1659 that Buddhists from the interior Kandyan kingdom did have an appreciation for vegetarianism writing that some of the Kandyan people, “…abstain from eating flesh at all, because they would not have a hand, or anything to do with, the killing of any living thing.” 7 He adds that these Buddhists, “…reckon that Herbs and Plants are the most innocent food.” 8 Hostility towards meat consumption within Sinhala Buddhist culture is apparent in other historical accounts 7 Knox, p.135. 8 Knox, p.136. 7  such as the Carpenter Preta Tale, a document that appeared in the 1700s and was specifically written by Buddhist who sought to discredit Christianity. In the text Jesus is described as someone who, “…drinks liquor, eats flesh, and calls himself god”9 and that he preached a heretical teaching, “…propagating the false doctrine that animals have no soul and may therefore be eaten.” 10 This association between vegetarianism and Buddhism, however, became most clearly entangled in the pre-independence movement where flesh consumption was increasingly associated with western decadence. The basic argument supposed in these historical accounts is that Buddhism is Slide a religion that promotes nonviolence towards all living creatures, that flesh eating is 9 inconsistent with those values and that it denounces greed and self-interested action (such as eating flesh at an animal’s expense). Figures such as Anagarika Dharmapala – perhaps one of the greatest Buddhist figures in Sri Lankan history – was a proponent of ethical vegetarianism and certainly had a huge impact on the impression lay Buddhists have towards dietary ethics. Dharmapala was a lay Buddhist, not a monk, who took up special white robes – not the saffron robes of the monks – and set about touring the nation of Sri Lanka and also India to drum up support for a Buddhist revival on the island, and even the world. Dharmapala compared his own austere and moral attitude towards animals with his Christian colonial counterparts who he detested because they ate meat and shot game birds. In his Autobiography, Dharmapala writes that, “…In contrast to my wine drinking, meat eating and pleasure loving missionary teachers, the (Monks) were meek and abstemious”.11 For Dharmapala, the Christian missionaries in Sri Lanka were characterised by their diet which was further associated with power and violence. The Buddhist monks, on the other hand, who abstained from immoral deeds were easily 9 Richard Young, p.61. 10 Richard Young, p.61. 11 Stewart, p.30. 8 overpowered by these vicious European invaders. For Dharmapala their abstemious nature was both a weakness and a strength: on the plus side it was characteristic of Buddhist morality but on the other hand it also meant that Buddhists were vulnerable to the nihilistic and depraved tendencies of Christian interlopers. Vegetarianism became a signature of idealised Buddhist behaviour because it represented the morally pure side of Buddhism. Dharmapala’s hostility towards animal killing and meat eating in non- Buddhist religions is summed up by the following shrill passage from another of his rhetorical writings: “…No Buddhist can hate gods, but gods who murder, and get angry, set fire to cities, kill innocent men, women and children, send tornadoes, typhoons, cyclones, earthquakes, thunderstorms, plagues, pestilences, and create blind, deaf and dumb – these the Buddhist rejects. Some gods want wine and bread and meat (i.e. Christianity) for their food. Some gods without (taking) the blood of cows are not happy (i.e. Hinduism). Some gods get the worship of the muddle- headed by giving them the freedom to kill animals and eat their flesh.” 12 (You will notice that Hinduism is also in for criticism here). Notwithstanding some of the Buddhist textual materials mentioned earlier, we can see that in Sri Lanka there are historical causes that set the scene for some of the modern Buddhist attitudes to vegetarianism. What I think is interesting about the study I undertook is just how divided the lay and monastic views about vegetarianism are in Sri Lanka. One of the explanations for this divide, I believe, is that lay people conceive of Buddhism in a different light than the monks do. They see the utility of Buddhism differently and they hold expectations of monks that are not necessarily the expectations that monks have of themselves. In general, this distinction between how lay people see Buddhism versus how monks see Buddhism is explainable in terms of what Gombrich and Obeyesekere have called “protestant Buddhism” – that is, a sort of Buddhism that emerged in the pre-independence era 12 Stewart, p.30. 9  that was almost a revolution against the way Buddhism was normally practiced in Sri Lanka. It is a revolution driven by Dharmapala’s revivalism. Slide These lay Buddhists ultimately led by the firebrand anti-establishment figure 10 of Dharmapala sought to reinvent Buddhism using the evangelical missionary tendencies of Christianity. While Dharmapala hated Christianity he also recognised that Christian missionaries had a talent for disseminating Christianity in a way that Buddhists did not have. Dharmapala and the so-called “Protestant Buddhists” saw Buddhism as an active religion, a religion that had to be community based, that should be involved directly in local politics, a religion that had to be a part of the daily lived experiences of Buddhists. Until then, Buddhism as it was practiced in Sri Lanka was considered a stuffy and musty activity and people would laconically attend temple with a utilitarian mindset. The monks were inactive and, as far as Dharmapala was concerned, a largely parasitic bunch. Therefore, a divide grew between laity and monks. This divide appears in many ways amongst the attitudes held by monks and lay people in regards to vegetarianism. Modern vegetarianism13 Despite the hostility towards the possibility of Sri Lankan vegetarianism mentioned earlier we can see that there is nonetheless a basis for a native vegetarian movement in Sri Lanka, but it is also one that is heavily invested in nationalist politics. This association between nationalism and food ethics is something that is largely foreign to the vegetarian movement in Australia which is mostly associated with the progressive side of politics or is otherwise plainly a matter of healthy eating. Furthermore, Australian vegetarianism is mostly a secular affair born from secular 13 Note: all interviews were conducted in Sinhala, audio recorded, and translated into English at a later date. 10  ethics. In Sri Lanka, vegetarianism is typically heavily tied up with religion, Slide including Buddhism.. We can see how vegetarianism emerges from these religious 11 concerns in a number of different interesting ways. In almost all cases, the pro- vegetarian behaviours are almost always driven by lay people. The first example of this vegetarianism is the use of vegetarian offerings as part of so- called buddhapūjā ceremonies. These ceremonies occur in the space of Buddhist temples and they involve the lay person offering items to a Buddha image in the main image house known as a buddhagĕ or Buddha house. The point of these ceremonies is that, in offering the item to the Buddha image, the lay person will produce good karma and thereby help ensure that they are reborn in better circumstances in a future life. Offering ceremonies of these kinds are therefore of high important to ordinary Buddhists since they are basically concerned with a Buddhist’s afterlife. Therefore, Buddhists are particularly concerned with being especially morally scrupulous in executing an offering ceremony since its proper execution will allow for greater merit to be cultivated. What is offered is therefore of the highest importance. It is very usual that lay people will offer food at such ceremonies and there is an increasing tendency that the food should be vegetarian. Lay vegetarians often regarded the giving of meat to a Buddha image to be itself an immoral activity. Mrs Jayawardene*, a housewife and mother of three children, for example, said that, “…(Giving meat) is a sinful activity….out of the five precepts one of them is to not kill animals (and so) I don’t offer it (to the Buddha image.” In fact, the first Buddhist precept which says that killing should be avoided in all circumstances was frequently raised as an explanation for why meat should not be offered to a Buddha image. Another research participant, an extremely elderly matriarch called Mrs Balasuriya* was similarly critical of offering meat: “…If you give the Buddha offering correctly,” she says, ”we shouldn’t offer (meat or fish). Buddha said that harming animals is not good.” She adds that what is truly important in offering to a Buddha image is that 11  one’s intention is good: “…You don’t need a single thing if your heart is pure. It’s okay to even eat only water and rice. Your heart is what needs to be good.” However, these examples of lay people giving vegetarian dishes in buddhapūjā ceremonies are examples of Buddhists voluntarily supplying meatless offerings. In fact, a number of informants insisted that it was perfectly acceptable to give meat at Slide 12 such ceremonies citing the fact that the Buddha himself ate meat. And yet there are places of especial importance where it is completely forbidden to give meat to representations of the Buddha. Such examples are especially telling as far as understanding the ideal of vegetarianism in Sri Lanka. The Sri Daḷadā Māligāva (The Temple of the Tooth) is probably the most significant site of religious observance in Buddhist Sri Lanka. It is in here, secluded away in the heart of the temple, kept in a precious reliquary or relic container, that the most important artefact in Buddhist Sri Lanka resides: a tooth of the Buddha himself. Buddhists from all over Sri Lanka flock here to glimpse at the tooth – or, rather, the container that holds it – and in doing so they acquire considerable merit. Those lucky enough to be able to conduct a buddhapūjā at this Temple of the Tooth must give special food alms to the tooth and these alms must be vegetarian. Not only vegetarian, but prepared under special conditions to prevent the food becoming contaminated which would of course be a religious offense. As a result, those who cook food for the tooth must wear special masks so that they do not breath onto the food or, conversely, so that they do not smell and thereby indirectly consume the food that is meant only for the Buddha relic. The fact that only vegetarian food can be given to the sacred relic that best represents the Buddha is relevant as it illustrates that meat is inherently associated with violence and death, unsuitable materials to give to the Buddha. Therefore, the general implication is that, because of the Buddha’s morally pure character, he should be supplied with vegetarian food which is itself morally pure and disconnected from killing and violence, activities antithetical to the first 12  precept of Buddhism. The fact that the Buddha himself may or may not have eaten Slide 13 meat is irrelevant. For those who provide offerings to the Temple of the Tooth, or for those who supply vegetarian offerings at their local temple or even to their shrine at home, the point is that lay people should give vegetarian food to the Buddha. There is likely elements of Hinduism that have penetrated this practice too. There is a view, discussed by Obeyesekere, that moral deities of the Sri Lankan pantheon should be offered only vegetarian food. Since Buddhist Sri Lankans also worship Hindu deities as a secondary activity, it would not do for Buddhist Sri Lankans to give “pure” vegetarian food to deities but give the Buddha himself allegedly corrupting meat foods. And there is even an effort by worshipers to rehabilitate immoral deities like Kataragama – the war god – by offering only vegetarian platters at his main temple. It is known that Kataragama prefers flesh foods, in keeping with his violent nature, but lay people want to think better of him and therefore typically try and supply vegetarian food (unless they really need a religious transaction to be guaranteed, in which instance they might sneak a hunk of meat in the offering tray). The point again, is that it matters less what the deity wants, what matters is that there is a lay expectation that “good” celestial beings would not take meat given its associations with violence. Let us leave aside these examples of giving vegetarian food to Buddha images and other deities. What about the vegetarians themselves? How do they negotiate Slide and justify their vegetarianism? 14 Perhaps the prime case to consider here is Mr Mendis* - by occupation an accountant, but a devout Buddhist who would perform Buddhist prayers (pirit) over an image of his family every day and would frequently mediate (…an activity recommended by Buddhism but rarely carried out by average Buddhists). Mr Mendis was a committed vegetarian, a diet that he ascribed purely to his Buddhist convictions. He says: “…the first precept of the five precepts is ‘do not take a life’ … so in respecting that, if everyone stopped eating flesh in the village, or in that area, 13  then butcheries would disappear. Similarly, if everyone in the country or everyone in the world stopped eating flesh then the killing of animals would stop.” Mendis observed that the Buddhist preoccupation with protecting cows was inconsistent with the basic Buddhist principle that all sentient lives should be valued: “…Every animal likes its life. The desire is the same – like caterpillar or an ant…if you try and touch them they get scared because they are frightened of death. In the sutras of the Buddhist religion it is taught that all animals, not just four legged ones, love their life. Even if I am dying on my death bed, even if I know I am about to die, when I have completed my age and I know that my time for death is right, it is possible that Slide 15 I want to live for even another second longer – every animal is like that.” And so, Mendis suggests, killing is wrong because there is a shared commonality and desire for life amongst all sentient beings, a Buddhist principle, he would think. This relationship between basic Buddhist principles, such as the precept against violence, and the implication that this should prevent one from engaging in acts that kill other beings was a common relation for many Buddhist vegetarians, despite the presumptions of previous scholarship. Yet even meat eaters aspired to be vegetarians, once again, citing the fact that the Buddha rejected violence. The reason that these meat eating Buddhists failed to commit themselves to vegetarianism was due to personal error. Take for example, Mrs Fonseka, housewife, mother and a person married to a wealthy local businessman. She insisted that the only reason she ate meat was because of “greed” – one of the greatest Buddhist sins – and “because we are used to it.” As she says, her family raised her to eat meat and fish – that does not make it right, she thinks, but it is hard to break old habits. Monkish hesitation Lay people were surprisingly open to vegetarianism and frequently saw it is as the ideal expression of Buddhist values. Monks, on the other hand, who we must realise 14  are traditionally seen as the protectors and transmitters of the Buddhist religion, Slide were far more circumspect about the importance of vegetarianism. At times, monks 16 were even hostile to the idea that Buddhism had anything to do with vegetarianism at all. You can see that such an idea is already at odds with attitudes expressed by some lay vegetarians. The head monk of one particularly famous and venerable temple in Colombo explained to me that interviewing monks about vegetarianism was pointless since the Buddha’s view on vegetarianism was clear and any monk would provide an identical answer. He was of course incorrect in this prediction, but his dismissal of the question is in itself interesting. One implication here is that, for this head monk, if another monk – or perhaps some ordinary misguided Buddhist - were to state that vegetarianism was a proper Slide expression of the Buddhist principle of nonviolence then he would be in some way 17 deviating from the Buddha’s teaching – it would be an act of heresy. In a similar fashion one other monk who I interviewed at an inner city Colombo temple explained that vegetarianism was in fact anti-Buddhist as it is a dietary practice associated with Jainism and is therefore an extremist activity. For him, any Buddhist that insisted upon vegetarianism was a fanatic and was dangerously close to apostasy, the abandonment of religious doctrine. Aside from these particularly dismissive cases, most monks were happy to discuss vegetarianism and took it to be a matter of some importance. Yet they very often cited the Buddha’s statement that it is possible to eat meat if it is “pure in three ways” as mentioned above. Provided an animal was not slaughtered for a monk then it is ethical to eat that animal. It would be, as far as the monk is concerned, as if they found the food simply lying around. Once killed, it would be a waste not to eat it. The food is, for all purposes, morally neutral. This reminds me somewhat of “freeganism” – a western practice where by ethically minded food eaters will only consume meat that they have found discarded – for them it is not morally 15  problematic as they did not directly support the meat industry by purchasing the meat. It was purchased by someone else. This principle basically applies in the case of these Buddhist monks. Venerable Balangoda added that, in addition to this idea that monk’s may eat what was not killed on their behalf, that the monk’s intention is also important: “…If we think that is meat or fish with a desiring thought, with a lustful thought, if you take it with greed, then that is also wrong as you create defilements.” Balangoda’s point here is that it is not enough merely to accept the meat is pure in the way mentioned above, it is crucial the monk takes the meat with right intention. If they crave the meat then that is, in itself, an immoral action since Buddhism regards desire and craving as the root of suffering. Balangoda’s implication here is that avoiding meat altogether prevents a monk from having to deal with such cravings. Yet it may also defer those cravings to some other non-meat foods. In the end, vegetarianism is not in itself a remedy for craving. And since craving and desire is the most basic religious problem in Buddhism, vegetarianism is not of particular monkish importance. They have more pressing matters such as conquering desire. For these reasons, monks very often deferred the moral question of whether meat should be eaten to the Buddhist laity. As far as the monks are concerned, their diet is dependent on the lay people who supply them with food. This relates to the fact that monks residing in temples are given all their food by lay people at an event called a dānē, a somewhat elaborate ceremony in which monks are offered food by Slide 18 lay people. The dānē is the evolution of a more ancient ceremony, sometimes still practiced, where monks go door to door asking for food that is then placed in the monk’s bowl – one of his few earthly possessions. This is called piṇḍapāta, begging for alms by monks.14 In this way, Buddhist monasticism originated from a humble tradition of charity. Keeping this in mind, Venerable Udugama made the following 14 Malalgoda, p.104. 16 point about the moral quandary of vegetarianism in Buddhism: “…It depends on who is looking at it: if you are looking at the monks side or the givers (lay) side. From the givers side it is a difficulty (as to whether a vegetarian food should be given).” For Udugama, it is not up to the monks to decide what to eat – that is a lay matter. Yet, at the same time, there are vegetarian monks and those vegetarian monks do reject meat when it is offered to them by lay people. Even so, the few regular monks who were vegetarians saw it typically as something that was a health benefit and therefore not of ethical importance. Venerable Buddhadatta, the deputy head monk at a small forest temple in Kegalle, said that he was a vegetarian because it was a healthy dietary option and recommended by medical doctors: “…it is possible” he says “that an animal had an illness in their body” so, Buddhadatta says, if we consume that animal’s flesh we might acquire the illness they had. While vegetables can also “have germs” it’s still safer to consume only vegetables as “you can’t tell for sure that, inside the blood of the animal what disease there might be.” It is simply prudent to be a vegetarian to avoid the possibility of consuming contaminated flesh. He seemed to disregard the first precept as being relevant. Monks routinely sought to uncouple the relationship between vegetarianism, diet and animal welfare. As we can see such attempts to disentangle these different ideas and activities is resisted by at least some lay people. Monks were wary of the association in part because of their familiarity with the textual tradition, something that was not always the case with the lay people. More than one monk pointed out that Devadatta, the nemesis and arch villain of the Buddhist canon, was himself an advocate for ethical vegetarianism. The very fact that Devadatta – who supposedly had tried to murder the Buddha on two occasions – wanted to make vegetarianism mandatory spoke badly for the practice of vegetarianism. Perhaps the most aggressive monk to oppose Buddhist vegetarianism was not one of the people interviewed in the study but an author called Venerable 17  Gnanananda Thera who penned a book called The Question of Vegetarianism (Sin: Slide 19 nirmansha prashnaya). Gnanananda argues forcefully that eating meat does not violate the first precept and therefore it is not a question, once again, for the monks as to whether eating meat is justifiable: it is question only for hunters, abbatoir workers, and the animal slaughter industry. He writes, “Friend, (some) people who eat meat are directly associated with animal slaughter. Namely a person that hunts….He then comes and eats the meat. That individual is most directly connected to the first precept (the verse to not kill). It’s because he had the intention and idea to harm and slaughter the animal. After having this intention to harm, the result is that the animal is killed.”15 Gnananada’s point here is that Buddhism opposes those who seek to kill animals, not those who eat their remains. It is the action of killing that is morally impure. What is done with the remains is not especially relevant. Hunters Slide are tainted by the eating only insofar that they killed the animal. Monks do not hunt 20 and therefore there is no real issue here. Again, it is a signature move of some monks to describe monastic pursuits as morally neutral while deferring moral responsibility to the lay community. This is possible to a large extent because the lay people are the one’s who support the monastic community but this creates the unusual situation where the laity have a disproportionate moral burden and this is counter to expectation as monks are usually construed as the moral elites. I do not mean to suggest that all monks took matters in this way. One monk, Venerable Kotapola, a kind of virtuoso character and strident animal welfarist, had set up an animal welfare collective in Colombo called the “Organisation for the Preservation of Life” (English translation). His group was concerned in the first instance with spreading the message that cows should not be killed and beef should not be consumed. In this way his group was primarily about cow protectionism but he was also interested in spreading the merits of vegetarianism. But Kotapola was an odd case and seemed to be outlier from usual monks who dwelled exclusively in 15 Stewart, p.63. 18  temples. Kotapola’s organisation headquarters doubled as an educational space for young children and it abutted a shrine to a Hindu deity. He sported shortly cropped hair rather than going completely bald – the convention for most monks. In all, it was clear that he was not a regular monk and the point here is that his while monks might be ethical vegetarians, it did go against the norm. Slide Protestant Buddhism, again 21 I think it is profitable to understand this divide between lay vegetarians, and lay vegetarian attitudes and expectations, versus monastic indifference or outright hostility to vegetarianism, in terms of the issue of Protestant Buddhism mentioned above. Again, Protestant Buddhism is a terminology of some dispute in the scholarly literature16 But the basic idea is that in the pre-independence movement in Sri Lanka there were efforts made by Buddhist figures such as Dharmapala to shake up the Buddhist establishment in an effort to defy the colonists. Dharmapala sought to politicise Buddhism, to create a narrative around Buddhism that projected it as a morally ideal religion, a religion that espouses pacifism, non-violence and total moral purity. To this extent he adopted and promoted the abstention of meat eating as a means to illustrate the moral decadence of the British Christian interlopers. Even though vegetarianism had genuine historical antecedents we can perhaps pinpoint the pre-independence period as a time when vegetarianism was deployed in a political and strategic manner. Moreover, Dharmapala was critical of the Sinhala monastic community seeing it as a mummified and corrupt organisation that played into the hands of the cunning colonists. Dharmapala saw the future of Buddhism as being in the hands of the laity. He saw Buddhism in an evangelical light, an active Buddhism that was politically active, that would engage in public protest, that would use people power to overthrow those who sought to undermine Buddhism in Sri Lanka. In this way, the lay Buddhist movement was born and it was a movement that 16 See: Prothero (1995), Holt (1991). 19  did not depend solely on the views of the monks. Very often it opposed their so called learned views. It is very important to note that one of the historical figures who supported Buddhist vegetarianism and had considerable effect on the independence movement was Henry Steel Olcott, a white Brit who publically converted to Buddhism in Sri Lanka and had considerable influence – for a time – on Buddhist affairs including Dharmapala. He fell out with Dharmapala only when he doubted the authenticity of the tooth relic at the Temple of the Tooth. His insistence that Buddhists should be vegetarians had quite a subsequent effect on attitudes to vegetarianism in Buddhist Sri Lanka. Another example of how colonial influence has since shaped future affairs. Olcott himself, like Dharmpala, was also critical of how monks practiced Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Perhaps this helps explains the divide between monks and laity. It does not seem to greatly impress some of these lay Buddhists that their vegetarian ideals conflict with the “facts” of Buddhism such as the seeming truth that the Buddha ate meat. These truths do have significant impact on bookish monks who are preoccupied with maintaining Buddhist tradition. But the laity disregard these norms in favour of building a different vision of Buddhism, one that respects animals in a way that is not consistent with the scholastic sacred texts. These lay people wish to get to the heart of what Buddhism is about, and are not especially worried with Slide navigating the numerous petty and bureaucratic rules that monks are so captivated 22 by. The monks, on the other hand, wish to proceed with preserving the tradition as they believe it has been practiced for thousands of years. Sri Lankan vegetarianism is therefore caught up with the age long battle of ancient traditions that are perhaps now redundant being challenged by non-traditional upstarts that have no interest in preserving traditions they do not think apply any longer. In closing, however, it is worth reminding ourselves that vegetarianism is still a minority diet in Sri Lanka. But it is clear that there is a vegetarian revival 20 happening on the island, that this revival is shaking up some stagnant traditions, and it reminds us that religious traditions are not defined by their texts but are rather decided upon by the lived community. Very often, it is not even the authorities that make decisions about how a tradition is shaped, but by the masses themselves. Yet at the same time, these revolutionaries are shaped by previous historical forces and the legacy of British colonialism can still be felt in Sri Lanka, and effects even the seemingly innocuous matter of Buddhist vegetarianism. List of informants Venerable Udugama – Older monk responsible for large temple in Kandy. Venerable Balangoda – Young monk at inner city Colombo temple. Venerable Buddhadatta – Deputy head monk at small forest temple. Venerable Kotapola – Founder of Organisation for Pres of Life. Mr. Mendis – Devout Buddhist and accountant. Mrs. Jayawardene – House wife, mother Mrs. Balasuriya – 88 year old matriarch of large family. Mrs. Fonseka – Comparatively wealthy housewife and mother of three children. Bibliography Basham, Arthur L. History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion. Motilal Barsidass Press, 2002. Holt, John. “Protestant Buddhism?” in Religious Studies Review, 17, no 4, 1991. 21 Jones, Charles Brewer. Buddhism in Taiwan: Religion and the State 1660-1990. Hawaii University Press, 1999. Gandhi, Leela. Affective Communities: Anticolonial thought, Fin-de-Siecle adicalism and the Politics of Friendship. Duke University Press, 2006. Gombrich, Richard. Buddhist Precept and Practice: Traditional Buddhism in the Rural Highlands of Sri Lanka. Routledge, 2009. Gombrich, Richard and Obeyesekere, Gananath. Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka. Motilal Banarsidass Press, 1988. Malalgoda, Kitsiri. Buddhism in Sinhala Society 1750-1900: A study of religious revival and change. University of California Press, 1976. Prothero, Stephen. “henry Steel Olcott and ‘Protestant Buddhism’ in Journal of the American Academy of Religion, , vol 63, no 2, 1995. Ruegg, Seyfort. “Ahimsa and Vegetrainaism in the History of Buddhism” in Buddhist Studies in Honour of Walpola Rahula, 1980. Stewart, James J. Vegetarianism and Animal Ethics in Contemporary Buddhism. Routledge Publishing, 2015. Young, Richard. ‘The Carpenter Preta’s Tale:An Eighteenth Century Sinhala Buddhist Folktale about Jesus’ in Asian Folklore Studies, vol 54, 1995. 22