Attitudes Towards Animals in Indian Buddhism

published in Balbir, Nalini; Pinault, Georges-Jean (eds.
)
Penser, dire et representer ['animal dans Ie monde ind'-en.
Paris Librairie Honore Champion. ISBN: 97R-2-7453-FKU,IJ
Attitudes Towards Animals
in Indian Buddhism
Lambert SCHMITHAUSEN
Mudagamuwe MAITHRIMURTHI
PRESENT paper is largely based on a previous article 1 that was
published a few years ago but written in German. Though keep-
ing most of the substance of the earlier article, we have con-
sidered it necessary to revise it by making a few omissions, additions,
modifications and corrections. Even so, the paper does not, of course,
aim to comprehensively treat of all aspects of the subject "animals" in
Indian Buddhism. This would definitely exceed the limits of both space
and time at our disposal. We rather want to concentrate on three main
aspects (from a traditional point of view, thus disregarding specifically
contemporary issues as, e.g., animal experiments): 1. Buddhist animal
ethics-theory and practice; 2. the position of animals in the frame-
work of the Buddhist analysis and evaluation of forms of existence; 3.
the position of animals in the framework of Buddhist soteriology. By
way of appendix, we shall add 4. a few remarks on animal classification
in Indian Buddhism. The first issue will include aspects of both theory
and practice: the ethical norm (Ll), problems of practicability (1.2), how
the norm worked in the everyday life of Ceylonese Buddhists (1.3), and
how the norm was backed up theoretically (1.4). In most parts of the
paper, there is a certain emphasis on the situation in early Buddhism,
1. Lambert Schmithausen & Mudagamuwe Maithrimurthi, "Tier und Mensch im Bud-
dhismus", in Paul Munch (ed.), Tiere und Menschen. Geschichte eines prekiiren ver-
hiiltnisses. Paderborn etc.: Ferdinand Schoningh 1998: 179-224. Schmithausen &
Maithrimurthi 1998. We thank the publisher for kindly giving the licence touse this
article as the basis of the present one. We also wish to express our heartfelt thanks
to Dr Anne Macdonald (Vienna) for taking the trouble to correct our English.
48 LAMBERT SCHMITHAUSEN & MUDAGAMUWE MAITHRIMURTHI
as documented by the Sutta- and Vinaya-pitaka, because the positions
developed in this period constitute the basis for the later developments.
But we have also tried to adduce later materials as much as possible in
order to give an impression of these developments as well. Needless to
say, no attempt to be exhaustive has been made, either in the paper itself
or in the documentation. Our aim is merely to elaborate some essential
points. As an ideal supplement, we recommend to the interested reader
the excellent article by Florin Deleanu: "Buddhist 'Ethology' in the Pitli
Canon: Between Symbol and Observation", published in The Eastern
Buddhist, 32.2 (2000), pp. 79-127.
1. Animal ethics
1.1. The ethical norm
According to Martin Southwold, some of the village Buddhists in Sri
Lanka, when asked by him what they were required to do as Buddhists,
replied: 'not to kill animals'. 2 This is, to be sure, not the only thing to
be expected of a good Buddhist, but what is important here is that the
informants obviously considered not killing animals an essential and
typical feature of Buddhist life, at least in contradistinction to the pre-
sumed cultural and religious background of the European anthropologist
who had posed the question. This assumption is supported by the fact
that, e.g., in the controversy between the Jesuit Matteo Ricci and Chi-
nese Buddhists in the first half of the seventeenth century the question
of whether the killing of animals is allowed was one of the vehemently
debated issues.
3
To point out that Buddhists do not kill animals would,
of course, equally serve the purpose of distinguishing Buddhists from
Muslims or Jews. Buddhists, of course, share the rejection of the killing
of animals with Jainas and Brahmins (though not with all sections of
Hindu society). In early times, however, not killing animals was one of
the elements by which Buddhism (just like Jainism) set itself off from
the traditional strand of Brahminical religion which still continued the
animal sacrifices of the Vedic ritual,
4
and also from the bloody rites of
2. Southwold 1983: 7.
3. Kern 1992: 9; 20; 48; 68-74; 81-83; 90-92; 103 f.; 187; 274.
4. See p. 51 with fn. 16, Cf. also BoBh 82,24 f., where it is stated that a bodhisat-
tva does not perform animal sacrifices or have others perform them. Cf. also YBha
ATTITUDES TOWARDS ANIMALS IN INDIAN BUDDHISM 49
certain popular or at least non-Vedic cults. 5 Wherever Buddhism spread,
at least its edl,lcated representatives have, on the whole, tried to abol-
ish or replace animal sacrifices, though they were not always entirely
successful. 6
Actually, the precept or, better, commitment
7
to abstain from killing
living, sentient beings (Pa. piilJiitipiita) has been the first and also the
most important
8
element of correct behaviour (szla)9 and wholesome
(kusala) ways of acting 10 from the outset. It is valid for monks and nuns
186,1., declaring animal sacrifice ... pasuvadham) to be equal to the
most heinous misdeeds, which bring immediate retribution in hell (anantarya).
5. Cf., e.g., the bloody sacrifices to trees or tree deities (which were converted into
unbloody forms of veneration under Buddhist influence), e.g. Ja I 169 or IV
115,18-21 (sacrifice to yakkhas; the verse [116,26], though, refers to a Vedic animal
sacrifice); cf. Paul Wodilla, Niedere Gottheiten des Buddhismus, Erlangen, 1928:
11 f.; 14; 16; Odette Viennot, Le culte de l'arbre dans l'lnde ancienne, Paris 1954:
p. 116; Asko Parpola, "The religious background of the SavitTI legend", in Tsuchida
& Wezler 2000: 210 f.
6. For some references see Schmithausen & Maithrimurthi 1998: 180 n. 7. Cf. also
the attempt of the Chinese emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty to replace animal sac-
rifices with vegetarian offerings (cf. Andreas Ernst Janousch, The Reform of Impe-
rial Ritual during the Reign of Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty (502-549), Diss.
Cambridge University 1998, 105 ff.; 228 f.; Tvo!. 52: 297b26-28). For the complex
situation in the Himalayan area see also Holler 2005: 468 f. For a case of replace-
ment of animal sacrifice (originally even human sacrifice) with unbloody ritual
under Buddhist influence see Klaus-Dieter Mathes; "The. High Mountain Valley of
Nar (Manang) in the 17th Century according to Two Tibetan Autobiographies", in:
Joilrnal of the Nepal Research Centre 12 (2001): 167-189, esp. 184.
7. They are either subsumed under "good behaviour" (sfla)-later called the "five
called sikkhapada (skt. "areas of training", "points in which
one has to train oneself' (if we follow Hsiian-tsangs Chinese rendering of the
term).
8. Thus explicitly Vi 648a23-25. Cf. also MPPU 155b21 f. and 27-29 (Lamotte 1949:
I1790): killing as the worst offence, but here the context seems to be about killing a
human, in the first place); Kern 1992: 103 f. and 131 (killing is the worst of the ten
unwholesome actions; here the context is killing animals!).
9. a) monks: e.g., DNI 63; MNI 179; III 33; ANI 272 f. (nos. 119 and 120); II 208 f.; b)
lay followers: e.g.,MNII 51; SNIV 320; ANIl 58; III 203; 212. The formulation for
monks (a) is usually more elaborate, the one for lay people (b) usually brief, except
when the context is uposatha. Cf. Schmithausen 2000b: 32 with n. 25.
10. E.g., DNIII 82; MNII 179; SNIV 313 f.; ANV 266 f.; 295 f. (elaborateformulation,
always referring to lay followers).
50 LAMBERT SCHMITHAUSEN &: MUDAGAMUWE MAITHRIMURTHI
as well as for lay followers. 11 In the case of monks there can be no doubt
that the living beings which should not be killed comprise both human
beings and animals, 12 for in the (more developed) formal code ofbehav-
jour, the Piitimokkhasutta, the killing of either category is expressly pro-
hibited by a separate rule, the term 'piil:za' being, in this case, reserved
for animals only. 13 It would even appear reasonable to assume that in
the case of monks (and nuns) what the precept envisaged, at least origi-
nally, in the first place was probably abstention from killing not so much
humans as rather animals; after all, for a monk who had renounced the
world and lived as a religious mendicant, much of his time withdrawn
in the wilderness, there was probably a strong temptation to kill ani-
mals, especially dangerous or bothersome ones, but little reason to kill
a human. When the precept came to be extended to lay followers, a shift
of emphasis may well have t&lzen place, such that killing a human gained
in relevance. But if in their case the precept had been intended to pre-
vent them from killing human beings only, 14 one would expect that with
regard to them the precept would have been re-formulated accordingly,
just as the precept of chastity (brahmacariya) was re-formulated, with
11. As far as we can see, the position of the 'Outsiders' (bahirdesakal:t) that one becomes
a Buddhist lay follower (upasaka) already by taking refuge (Saral}agamana) (Vi
645c29 f.; AKBh 215,4; cf. also Lamotte 1949: II 830 n.) does not mean that assum-
ing the commitments may be dispensed with. On the contrary, they have to be for-
mally adopted after taking refuge in order to stabilize the latter; for if one does not
protect life, taking refuge is not pure (Vi 646a7 f.). The position of the 'Outsiders'
merely means that one starts to be an upasaka already in the initial phase of the
procedure, before the subsequent formal assumption of the commitments. For the
Kasmlrian on the other hand, already the refuge formula contains an
anticipatory assumption of the commitments (Vi 646a20-b7; AKBh 215,4-12 [on
4.30cdJ).
12. Expressly so DN-a I 69,24 and 27.
13. Vin III 73 (parajika 3) and N 124 (pacittiya 61).
14. As, by way of exception, AN III 208-211 (no. 178) may suggest, where par;atipata
is expressly specified as "having lolled a man or a woman" (itthiY(l va purisaY(l va
jfvita voropesi). In this text, however, the five precepts for lay followers are dis-
cussed from the perspective of pointing out that in keeping them one does not come
into conflict with the king, i.e. secular criminal law, so to speak. Actually, par;a may,
in certain contexts (e.g. DNII 29,32; SrfghT 10,8 f.), be used for human beings only,
just as it may, in others (like pacittiya 61), refer to animals only. Cf. also Asoka,
RE XIII B or PE 4 C (humans) on the one hand and RE I F (animals only) on the
other.
reference to lay followers, to mean abstention from improper sexual
behaviour (kilmesu micchilcilra). Hence, it appears reasonable to assume
that also in the case of lay followers the precept not to kill living beings
was intended to include animals as well.
1s
This assumption is confirmed by the unanimity of later tradition.
Apart from this, already in the canonical texts of early Buddhism we find
passages where the killing of animals by lay people is expressly con-
demned, e.g. in the context of the criticism of Vedic animal sacrifice, 16
or when people like butchers, hunters, fowlers or fishermen, who make
a living by killing animals, are enumerated side by side with robbers (i.e.
such as kill their victims), executioners (coraghiltaka) and jailers as per-
sons who torture others. 17
Yet, one may raise the question to what extent animals were under-
stood to be included in the precept, or, in other words, what kinds. of
beings were understood to be included in "living, sentient beings"
(pillJa). Is it possible to understand pillJa as referring, at least in the first
place, only to larger animals: mammals, birds and fish, as the criticism
of butchers etc. and of animal sacrifice suggests? Or do the pillJa by
necessity include even tiny animals like ants or worms, or even beyond?
Actually, the Middle Indic use of pillJa in the sense not of "breath" or
"life(-force)" but of "breathing/living being" is somewhat strange, and
15. Thus explicitly MN-a I 198,14 (explaining pi'iI:uitipata with reference to lay fol-
lowers since the third concept is kamesu micchacara, not abrahmacarya). Cf. also
Sn 394, which teaches, as the first element of the ideal behaviour of a householder
(gahatrha), that he should abstain from violence against all beings-moving as well
as stationary ones, thus strictly speaking including not only animals but even plants
(see Plants 59 if.)-and neither kill any living being himself nor make others do so
nor approve of its being done by anybody.
16. Cf. (a) DN II 352 f.; AN II 42; SN 175 f. (No. 3.9); Sn 284 if., esp. 296 f. and 303 if.;
Ja 1166-168; Tvol. 1 no. 1: 100b5 f.; (b) DNI 141; MNI 343,27-344,14 =412,13-20
= AN II 207,12-208,5; cf. SmigP IY.44 '" T vol. 26 no. 1536: 406b20-c4. The pas-
sages under (a) criticize only the killing of animals, those under (b) also the fell-
ing of trees for sacrificial posts and the cutting of grass for covering the sacrificial
ground, in the sense of a wider concept of life or sentience as it is indeed found in
the Vedic tradition (see Plantsp. 58 f.).
17. MN 1343,21-26= 412,9-13 = AN II 207,5-11; cf. also, e.g., SaligP IY.44 '" T vol. 26
no. 1536: 406b13-20; LoPra(T) 109a8-b2 (Skt. see K. Matsuda in: Bukkyo-gaku
14/1982: (11)); YBha 191,9-11. An explicit disapproval of the position that ani-
mals may be killed for consumption or the utilization of their body-parts is found at
AKBh 240,20 and 24 f. and at Vi 605c4 f.
we wonder if it may not be a short-hand for ptilJabhuta, which in its turn
probably derives from Skt. prtilJabhrt,18 whieh was origina:1ly used for
animals that support [human] life, 19 i.e. such animals on which humans
subsist, hence mainly domestic anim.als, or at any rate larger animals
down, at most, to birds and fish, which serve as food. Yet the Buddhist
use ofptilJa Gust like the Jaina one) is normally more extensive, and in
a passage of the Vinayapitaka, the Basket of Monastic Discipline, it is
expressly stated that an ordained monk should not kill any living,being
(ptilJa) , even down to an ant.
20
A need was felt to make this explicit,
though.
Anyway, the passage shows that observing the precept in full, as was
expected of monks (and nuns), implies abstention from killing even tiny
creatures like ants. This becomes still more clear in the Ptitimokkhasutta,
the code of behaviour for monks and nuns, where, apart from the gen-
eral prohibition against killing a human being or an animal, borderline
cases like drinking or spilling water containing tiny animals (ptilJaka)
are expressly mentioned as something to be avoided.
21
A monk should
not even injure plants and seeds. 22 In an archaic verse text, an enumera-
18. K. R. Nonnan, "Piili Lexicographical Studies IV", in Journal of the Pali Text Society
11 (1987), p. 39f.
19. See Albrecht Wezler: "Sanslcrit praIJabhrt or What supports what?", in Ritual, State
and History in South Asia. Essays in Honour of 1 C Heesterman, Leiden/Koln, 1992,
pp.393-413.
20. Yin I 97: antamaso kunthakipillika1'{! upadaya. The precise meaning of kuntha is not
clear (cf. Ramers (Peter), Die" Drei Kapitel aber die Sittlichkeit" im SramaIJyaphala-
satra, Diss. Bonn, 1996, pp. 45-48; Nalini Balbir: "Fourrnis indiennes", in: Du corps
humain, au carrefour de plusieurs savoirs en Inde. Melanges o:lferts a Arion Rosu
a l' occasion de son 80e anniversaire. Studia Asiatica 4/2003-5/2004: 409 f.). Equi-
valent expressions are found in the corresponding passages of other. Vinayas as
well, e.g. VinMf 120a28; VinDh 758a14and 815c4; VinSa 157a22. Cf. also Tvol.
24: 459a7.
21. Yin IV 49 and 125 (Pacittiya 20 and 62).-Cf. also the regulation of the Malasar-
vastivada Vinaya (Peking-Tanjur, 'Dul-ba, De: 224a2 :If.; T vol. 24: 286c20 :If.)
which s t a t ~ s that before the cremation of a c'orpse monks should make sure that
there are no maggots in it, and that, if no fire-wood is available, they should bury the
corpse only if the ground (zhing?) does not abound in tiny animals (G. Schopen, "On
Avoiding Ghosts and Social Censure: Monastic Funerals in the Miilasarvastivada-
Vinaya", in Journal of Indian Philosophy, 20 (1992), pp. 15,15 :If.; cf. Hob 578
s. v. dabi). According to SrfghT 24,7 f, a bug-infested bed should not be dried in full
sun nor be thrown into snow or mud, or into cold or hot water.
22. Yin IV 34 and parallels (see Plants p. 5 ft).
- ATTITUDES TOWARDS ANIMALS IN INDIAN BUDDHISM 53
tion of different species of beings (piir:za) starts with grasses and
trees,23 and some other early texts speak of stationary (thiivara) living
beings, which in Jaina sources clearly include plants. 24 But in Buddhism
plants came to be excluded from the realm of living, sentient beings,
and even in the early period they were at best another borderline case
of sentience. 25
For the everyday life of most lay followers, such borderline cases as
plants or seeds were probably of little or no significance.
26
But what
about animals? Are lay followers, too, expected to abstain from killing
animals even down to ants or tiny creatures in the drinking water? As
far as the canon of the Theravada school is concerned, express state-
ments to this extent seem to be rare, a passage where the Buddha is
reported to have chastised boys for beating a snake with sticks 27 being
rather exceptional. In the formulation of the first precept with reference
to lay followers, no explicit specification, comparable to its extension
even down to ants as found in the Vinaya, is met with anywhere in the
Theravada canon.
The fact that apart from pointing out the most flagrant violations like
butchering, hunting and fishing there is little specification of the precept
with regard to ordinary lay followers may indeed not be accidental. It
may rather signal the conscious intention to keep the precept practica-
ble for the majority by marking only the ideal and the extreme opposite,
leaving it to the individual to determine to what extent he or she was, in
everyday life, able to approximate the ideal. Practically, this may have
amounted to a tacit (though not explicit) toleration of something simi-
lar to what in the Brahminical tradition is called "delimited (avicchinna)
abstention from injury (ahif!lsii) " , which, among other things, means
abstention from killing with the exception of the killing that is inevita-
ble on account of one's occupation (which was, in ancient and medieval
India, largely determined by one's caste).28 Yet, we do not know of any
23. Sn 600-601, cf. p. 114 and Plants 21.1.
24. Sn 146-147; 704; Upasenasiltra (see fn. 78) verse 26cd. Cf. Plants p. 61.
25. For details see Plants, esp. pp. 66-82. Cf. also Balbir 2000: 23.
26. But cf. Sn 394 (see fn. 15).
27. Ud 11 f. (2.3).
28. Cf. on Yogasiltra 2.31, adducing the fisherman who abstains from
injuring any living being except fish as an example for ahirrzsii delimited by' caste
(determining one's occupation), and the warrior who delimitates killing to battle
explicit statement of this principle in the early Buddhist texts, and they
would in any case be reluctant to apply it to occupations essentially
involving the habitual killing of animals.
In the canon ofthe northern school of the Sarvastivadins (and 'Mfila-
Sarvastivadins'), however, the situation has changed. Here, the com-
mitment. not to kill living beings is regularly specified, even in the case
oflay followers, by the addition "even down to an ant". 29 Precisely by
wantonly killing, without regret, a small ant which does no harm nor
can be utilized a person discloses his or her heartlessness. 30 Moreover,
in some systematic treatises of this school the canonical statement that
killing living beings is based either on greed or on hatred or on confu-
sion 31 is explained to imply that killing out of greed encompasses not
only killing animals in order to utilize parts of their bodies but also kill-
ing in self-defence 32 or in order to rescue a friend; and when people say
that killing animals is allowed for the sake of food, or for getting rid of
noxious and troublesome animals like tigers, snakes, scorpions, centi-
pedes, or wasps, this is killing out of confusion (moha). 33
We do not claim that the precept did not mean abstention from killing
any animal from the outset. But it appears that the inexplicitness of the
formulation found in the Theravada canon (supported in this point, as far
as we can see, by most other traditions) 34 is deliberate, in order to make
as an example of ahilJ7sa delimited by situation (samaya). The position, advocated
by the 'Outsiders' (bahirdesakal:t), that a Buddhist lay follower (upasaka) need not
assume all the five commitments but may confine himself to some of them or even
only one (Vi 645c28 f. and 646a8-11 )-rejected by the Kasmirian (Vi
646a17 f. and b7-11; AKBh 215,13-17)-seems to have a different purport, and
according to the underlying siitra (AKTU voL Tu: 249a2-b6) abstention from kill-
ing seems to be the basic commitment which has to be assumed in any case.
29. a) Lay followers: e.g., Hartel (R.), Karmavacana, Berlin, 1956, p. 54; T voL 1 no.
26: 501b15; DhSk 80,23 f.; Y 172,4 f.; cf. also Tvol. 2 no. 99: 271b22 (but missing
at c23) b) monks: e.g., TvoL 1, 657a16; SBhVII, 232,11 f.
30. Vi 183a29-b4; Vi2 138bl4-16.
31. TvoL 2 no. 99: 274b24 f.
32. At Vin I 237 the army leader SIha (see fn. 90) declares that he would by no means
kill a living being, not even for the sake of [saving his] life.
33. Vi 605c4-6 and 12-16; T voL 28 no. 1552: 894a9 f. and 11 f. (cf. Dessein 1999: I
194); AKBh 240,19 f. and 24 f.
34. Cf., e.g., T voL 1 no. 1: 83c14-15 and 88c20; no. 22: 272cll-13; voL 2 no. 125:
625b15-18 and 756c28-29. Cf. also DBhS 23,7-9. Still, the issue requires systematic
investigation.
some tacit concession to practicability. In this regard the express addi-
tion, even in the precept for lay people, of the words "down to ants" in
the Sarvastivada sources appears as a rigidization. It bars the subterfuge
offered by the inexplicitness of the (presumably) original formula, but
at the same time it invariably delivers people like peasants to increased
feelings of gUilt since they have to earn their livelihood by means of
activities in the course of which the killing of animals, at least small
ones such as dew worms, is often inevitable. A similar rigidization can
also be observed in the post-canonical development of the Theravada
school
35
and in a cosmological text, the Lokaprajfiapti of the SarpmatIya
school
36
and its Pali version, where even squashing lice or fleas, boiling
silk-worms, pounding sesame grains containing tiny animals and smok-
ing out bees or even mosquitoes is stated to be punished in hell, 37 just
like slaughtering sheep, pigs and cattle. 38
Even if ideally no animal at all should be killed, one may ask whether
there is a gradation of gravity in killing different kinds of animals, i.e.,
whether killing certain animals (e.g., larger mammals) is worse than
killing certain others (e.g., small insects), or whether killing any animal
whatever is equally unwholesome. Intuitively, one would probably think
that killing a large or more sensitive animal is worse than killing an insect.
Actually, in later Theravada sources the principle that killing a bigger ani-
mal is worse than killing a smaller one is expressly stated.
39
The reason
adduced is that normally the killing of a bigger animal requires more
preparation or activity (payoga). As for animals of equal size,the grav-
ity is stated to depend on the degree of the passion (kilesa) or violence
35. Cf., e.g., Ja I 439 (post-canonical prose commentary), where a Brahmin (I)-the
Bodhisattva-decIares that he has never killed an animal, not even one as small as
an ant. Cf. also p. 74.
36. For the affiliation of these texts see Okano 1998: 6 f.; 23 f; 27 ff.; 55-60.
37. Respectively: LaPra(Ch) 209b26 f. (LaPan 101,1-3; trans!. 95; MVu 21,14 f.); 21Oc2
(not found in LaPan and MVu); 209c7 (LaPan 101,11 f.; transl. 95; cf. MVu 22,6-8);
208b14-16 and 21Oa5-7 (cf. LaPan 96,14-18 [not mentioning bees] and 102,15-18;
transI. 92 and 96; MVu 20,5-9 and 23,1-4).
38. LaPra(Ch) 208c15 f (LaPan 98,11f.; transI. 93).
39. DN-a I 69,24 ff.; MN-a I 198,14 ff.; Vin-a 864. Cf., in this connection, the quantifi-
cation of the merit/demerit earned by the saving/killing of various kinds of living
beings as established by the Chinese monk Chu-hung (1535-1615) (Kenneth Ch'en,
Buddhism in China, Princeton, 1964, p. 436).
(upakkama) involved. Against this, Tibetan Buddhists think that if kill-
ing is inevitable for the sake of food, killing one big animal is prefer-
able to killing several smaller ones.
40
This would make sense if there
were no considerable hierarchy among animals, at least from the sote-
rio10gical point of view, but it may as well have something to do with
the fact that a large portion of Tibetan Buddhists had to make their liv-
ing by breeding cattle. Finally, Gombrich
41
mentions the view of a con-
temporary Ceylonese monk who derived gravity exclusively from inten-
tion: "It is equally bad to kill an elephant or art ant, .,. if the intention
is the same."
According to the ordinary briefformulation (see fn. 9[bJ) ofthe (nor-
mally five) precepts or commitments, a lay follower merely resolves to
desist from killing living beings. This could easily be interpreted to mean
that other forms of injuring or torturing them are allowed, or at any rate
less serious.
42
Yet when the same commitments are formulated in the
context of the monk's path to liberation (see fn. 9 [ a]) or in the context of
the more demanding series of the ten wholesome (kusala) ways of acting
(see fn. 10), abstention from killing living beings is expressly connected.
with an attitude of shame (lajja, perhaps in the sense of a shrinking back
from destroying life or from violence),43 sympathy (daya) , and caring
(anukampa)44 for the welfare of all living beings.
45
A Mahayana text
40. Vigoda 1989: 29; Harvey 2000: 165 (referring to Ekvall); Dalai Lama in Kerry S.
Walters and Lisa Portmess (eds.), Religious Vegetarianism From Hesiod to the Dalai
Lama, SUNY, Albany, 2001, p. 88; Holler 2005: 473.
41. Gombrich 1971: 257.
42. Thus explicitly Yin III 76 (cf. McDermott 1989: 272). Cf. also Vi 646a24: ' ~ m o n g
[the acts] damaging living beings, killing is the foremost (i.e. worst)."
43. The commentaries explain lajjii as "shunning bad [actions]" (piipa-jigucchana:
DN-a I 70; MN-a II 206; cf. also the Jaina explanation as "being afraid of blame"
(avaviida-bhaya) in the Dasavaikiilika-ciln)i [Indore 1933: 306] on Dasaveyiiliya
(Jaina-Agama-Series Bd. 15. Bombay 1977) 9.1.13a, where lajjii is likewise fol-
lowed by dayii). Yet this explanation does not account for the fact that in our con-
text lajjii as well as dayii occur only in connection with abstention from killing, not
with the remaining wholesome ways of acting, though in their case too one should
equally shun the corresponding bad actions.
44. Cf. Maithrimurthi 1999: 118-124. Cf. also the quasi-synonymity of abstention from
injuring (avihi'!lsii) and caring for beings (bhiltiinukampii) at DN II 28,38, etc.
45. Cf. also VinSa 182b18 and 21 f. ("You have deliberately taken the life of an animal,
you have no sense of sympathy or mercy"). Cf. Vin III 42, where a monk (a former
potter) who had made a hut out of fired clay-thereby killing tiny creatures (cf.
even adds the sentiment of loving-kindness (maitracitta) , 46 which is to
be cultivated with regard to all sentient beings in early Buddhism too. 47
Thus, one should not merely abstain from killing, but should refrain
from all kinds of injury, cruelty, torture and enmity. 48 This too, of course,
holds good not only with regard to people but also with regard to ani-
mals. One canonical text is explicit in pointing out that the slaughter of
animals is unwholesome not only because one takes their life but also
because they are made to suffer pain both during and before the slaugh-
ter
49
(an observation appearing very much to the point in our days as
well). In later sources, beating, flogging, flaying or violent subjugation
of domestic animals is expressly regarded as misbehaviour. 50
Especially in the case of monks, the cultivation of sympathy with
all living beings may, in the first place, be a spiritual practice, a mental
exercise, aiming to purify one's own mind,51 and in the case of lay fol-
Samantapfisfidikfi II 288,15 ff.)-is reproached for his lack of mercy towards ani-
mals.
46. DBhS II B (p. 23,10). Loving-kindness of the bodhisattva extending even to insects:
MPPU256c7.
47. Cf. above all Sn 145 if.; 967. Detailed treatment in Maithrimurthi 1999: 47-113.
48. E.g. MNIII 204,3-17; Ud 11 f. (2.3); Patisambhidfimagga II 136 (sabbesalJ1 pfilJfinalJ1
... apf{anfiya ... anupaghatena ... asantiipena ... apariyiidanena ... avihesaya ... ); Sn
117 (who harms living beings, who has no sympathy or mercy for them, is an out-
caste); cf. also SNrv 351,21 and V 393,261' (vyabadh-). C1'. also the replacement of
"not killing" by "not injuring" at places like MN 139,23 or AN III 213,21, though it
has to be kept in mind that the verb used for "injuring", viz. hilJ1s, includes or, espe-
cially in older sources, primarily means: killing (cf. C. Caillat, "Words for violence
in the 'Seniors' of the Jaina Canon", in R. Smet and K. Watanabe (eds.),Jain Studies
in Honour oj lozej Deleu, Hon-no-Tomosha, Tokyo, 1993, p. 220 if.; cf. also BudNat
p. 42 n. 233). Quite explicit is the prohibition of torturing (for novices) in SrfghT
16,6-15 ( ... na sattviin pfayet ... ); cf. also 24,8 f. and 13 f.
49. MNI 371,7 f. and 11 f.
50. E.g., LoPra(Ch) 208a13-15; a27-b2; c27-29 (LoPan 96,2-4; 9-11; 99,3-5; transi. 91
f.; 93; cf. MVu 19,6-10); Tvol2 no. 99: 136bll and 16 (mentioning persons who
break in elephants, horses and bulls among other evil-doers like butchers). Cf. also
Okano 1998: 267 f. and 429 (subjugation of animals as a symptom of the world's
deterioration). Whipping, beating and killing of cows, sheep, etc. as serious wrong-
doing: MPPU 648b5.
51. Cf., e.g., AN III 290 f.; DN III 247 f.; SN V 105; MN I 284 f.; SrBha 210,1 f.;
428,20 if. (cf. Maithrimurthi 1999: 283 and 303): "Those living beings, too, about
whom I did not care, in the past, with a sentiment of loving-kindness: though they
have passed away [in the meantime], still I now care for them, so that my own mind
lowers it may primarily be practiced with a view to acquiring 'merit'
(pU1:tya).52 But this does by no means exclude that sympatb.y and car-
ing for animals may express themselves in active help as well. A monk
may spontaneously free an animal from a trap, or a fish from a weir. 53
In Buddhist monasteries, dogs, crows and other animals receive their
share in the meal leftovers, 54 and in a canonical sermon on alms-giving
it is stated that even a gift to an animal is meritorious. 55 This is equally
true of feeding despised animals like dogs and crows, 56 or rinsing a bowl
in a village pond with the intention to make the food remnants availa-
ble to the aquatic animals inhabiting it. 57 In Mahayana, a bodhisattvci
58
is obliged to yield a quarter of his own food to hungry animals. 59 Or
he may justify the intake of food with the idea that it also supports the
may by free from impurity and malice." Cf. also AKBh 272,13 (loving-kindness is
meritorious on account of the mental attitude, even if no other living being is actu-
ally benefited).
52. Cf., e.g., AN IV 151,1-10.
53. Yin III 62 f. (a somewhat delicate matter because the trapper might claim the animal
as his property). Cf. also Harvey 2000: 174 (Sri Lankan forest monks looking after
orphaned animals).
54. John S. Strong, The Legend and Cult of Upagupta, Princeton Uniy. Press, Princeton,
1992: 51; Holler 2005: 467. At VinDh 660b13-21, birds are described as making
too much noise when eating the left-overs of the monks' food that had been thrown
away (with no mention being made of an explicit intention to feed the birds).
55. MN III 255; AKBh 270,5 f.; G. Martini, "PaficabuddhavyakaraJ).a", in Bulletin
de l'Ecole franfaise d'Extreme-Orient, 55 (1969); p. 128 n.3. Cf. also
38,23 if.
56. Cf. fa I 178,2 f. and 486,22 if.
57. ANII6l.
58. For .the sake of clarity, I distinguish between "Bodhisattva" when referring to the
historical Buddha before his Awakening or in one of his previous existences, and
"bodhisattva" (in italics) when the practicioner of Mahayana who aspires to Bud-
dhahood is meant.
59. E.g., Ratnameghasutra, quoted Silq 127,17 (vinipatittintim, i.e. to animals and pre-
tas); Tvol17 no. 783: 721a16 f. (cf. Silk 1994: 91); AtIsa: Byan chub sems dpa' las
dan po pa' i lam la 'jug pa bstan pa (in Atfsa-viracitti ektidasagranthti/:t, Bibl. Indo-
-Tibetica xxiv, 1992): 13,3 f. Cf. also 215,15 f and 129,13-15 (Ratnartiiisutra,
cf. Silk 1994: 469 and 351 f.); Ratntivalr (ed. M. Hahn, Bonn 1982) 3.49-50 (cf.
Harvey 2000: 172). T vol. 50 no. 2059: 345a8 f. (biography of GUJ,labhadra): 'Mer
each meal, he would share his food with birds which gathered on his hand to eat"
(reference and transl. owed to Florin Deleanu). Sharing one's meal with non-human
beings (e.g., dogs and birds) is also an element of Brahminical asceticism: Baudh-
DhS 2.(10.)18.10; Wezler 1978: 82.
80.000 worms living in his body. 60 He should also save animals from
danger, e.g. by transporting fish from a drying pond to a larger one, 61 or
by ransoming captivated animals or such as are destined for slaughter-
a custom which seems to be comparatively old 62 and is widespread in
Buddhist countries, including those dominated by the Theraviida tradi-
tion.
63
In addition, a bodhisattva should, ideally, even be ready to sac-
rifice his body or parts of it to hungry animals,64 as in the famous story
of the hungry tigress who was about to devour her own cubs but was
detained by a prince (the Buddha in a former life) who fed her with his
own blood and flesh instead. 65
1.2. Problems o/putting the ethical norm into practice
Even apart from such an extreme altruistic attitude, the precept or
commitment not to kill (and torture) any living being, including animals,
is very demanding and not at all easy to keep perfectly. As we have tried
to show inthe preceding paragraph, there appears to be a certain diver-
gence, between the various traditions and perhaps also in the course of
60. Tvo!. 11 no. 310: 645b4-6 (Sik:; 129.7-9; cf. Silk 1994: 468 and 350 f.); vol. 17 no.
783: 721a18 f. (cf. Silk 1994: 91); vol. 24 no. 1503: 1121b8 f.
61. E.g., Suvarl}abhasottama-siltra (ed. I. Nobel), ch. 17 (Jalavahana-parivarta); Ricard
1994: 169. For the Theravada area: Spiro 21982: 271.
62. Ja VI 593,4-7; perhaps already Asoka (SE 5 L). Cf. also VinMa 495c3 if.: monks
must not accept parrots, peacocks, fowl, sheep or deer (cf. the similar regulations
in the old stereotype DN 164,16-32: see fn. 101); if the donor says that he will kill
them if they are not accepted, the monks should exhort him not to do so but to either
feed and guard them or set them free. Cf. also MVu II 99,16-18.
63. Harvey 2000: 173 f. Cf., e.g., S.1. Tambiah, World Conqueror and World Renouncer,
Cambridge, 1977, p. 116 (Laos); Spiro 21982: 271 f. (Burma). For the Far East:
FWCh 1006b9; EncBuddh I 291; Chapple 1993: 30; 40 f.; 1anousch 1998 (see fn.
6): 171 and 191; Chu Hung (1535-1615) quoted in Walters & Portmess 2000 (see
fn. 40): 81-83; W. Gundert, Japanische Religionsgeschichte, Stuttgart, 1943: 52. For
Tibet: Vigoda 1989: 29; Ricard 1994: xxiii; xxx n. 53; 116; 328; 353; 355; 478;
517; 524; 542 f. ; Holler 2005: 477-482. R. Langer, Buddhist Rituals of Death and
Rebirth: A Study of Contemporary Sri Lankan Practice and Its Origins, Routledge,
London, 2007, pp. 12-14.
64. Cf. A:;r 178,24-28: the bodhisattva living in the wilderness should not be afraid of
dangerous beasts of prey but should, if they eat him, consider it a voluntary act
of giving them his body; similarly Ratnarasisutra quoted Sik!f 200,12-18 (cf. Silk
1994: 470 f. and 352 f.); A ~ r a d a s 41,6-10; FWCh 1006a20 f.
65. See D. Schlingloif, Ajanta. Handbuch der Malereien, Vol. I, Harrassowitz, Wies-
baden, 2000, pp. 161-164 (with copious references).
the historical development of one and the same tradition, with regard to
the question how rigidly the norm should be inculcated, especially in the
case of lay followers. Still, even when maximal demands are not made
explicit, as in the Theravada canon, the norm as such remains maximal-
ist and establishes a very high standard to which every Buddhist should
at least aspire.
It is, of course, monks and nuns who have the best chance to come
close to the ideal. In contrast to lay people, they live on alms and hence
need not care for their livelihood. In a sense, they set the example for
the ideal conduct oflife (or should at least do so), whereas lay follow-
ers can do so at best by way of exception or on special days, i.e. on
the uposatha days when they renew and strictly observe their commit-
ments and approximate the conduct of monks by following some addi-
tional ascetic rules as well. But even for monks and nuns, not killing or
injuring any animal is far from easy. Even for them, some compromise
with practicability was necessary if extremely rigid and detailed rules
(as imposed upon Jaina mendicants) were to be avoided. An important
issue in this connection is unintentional killing. E.g., when walking one
may easily crush tiny animals like caterpillars or beetles unintentional-
ly. 66 In this regard, in Buddhism the norm not to kill animals has, espe-
cially in Vinaya texts, explicitly been qualified by the addition of the
word "intentionally" (sa7[lcicca). 67 Unintentional killing is no offence. 68
Even so, there are actions in the case of which it is at least foreseeable
that animals will be killed or injured, albeit unintentionally, 69 e.g. when
monks wander about during the rainy season, or when they walk around
in wooden sandals. Therefore, such activities, too, came to be prohibit-
ed.
7o
For the same reason, monks have to investigate and, if necessary,
66. Cf., e.g., TSi 290c7 f.; 294a6-8; VinDh 677a21 f.; cf. also b 6-13. Even a liberated
person cannot avoid unintentionally injuring living beings: TSi 294a24 f.
67. E.g., Vin ill 73 (Parajika 3); IV 124 (Pacittiya 61); MNI 523,4 f. = AN IV 370,2 f.
= DN ill 235,4 f. (a liberated monk is incapable of intentionally killing a living
being). .
68. Not only from the point of view of monastic discipline, but also karmic ally. Cf, e.g.,
TSi 290c8; 294a9 f.; b 20 f.; Takakusu 1966: 58 (Tvol. 54: 213a6 f.).
69. One of the main differences between Buddhists and Jainas is that J ainas take this point
much more seriously: " ... carelessness (pramada), which leads to the performance of
unintended deeds, is strongly reviled as being action itself." (Balbir 2000: 27 f.).
70. Wandering about in the rainy season: Vin 1137 and IV 296 f. (cf. Plants 9); similar
regulation also for the Brahminical wandering ascetic (parivrajaka): e.g., BauDhS
to filter water before drinking or pouring it in order to make sure that
no animalcules will be killed.71 That this rule was expected to be taken
seriously is shown by a passage according to which a monk preferred
dying from thirst to disregarding the rule; he was even applauded by the
Buddha for his steadfastness.7
2
In this connection, however, practica-
bility would depend on fixing a minimum size for the animalcules to be
taken into account. If, as in most explanations of the rule, the animal-
cules concerned are those that can be perceived by normal eye-sight, 73
observing the rule is cumbrous but possible. If, however, the rule were
extended to minute animalcules visible to the divine eye only (or, in
modern phraseology, to microscopic animalcules), 74 the rule would not
have been practicable in earlier times when sterilized water from the tap
was not available, since filtering would not have sufficed.
A problematic issue with which monks, too, are confronted-and
especially monks that have withdrawn into the wilderness-is how to
deal with animals that are dangerous or at least bothersome for man:
tigers, lions and other predatory animals, poisonous snakes, spiders and
centipedes, and biting insects like mosquitoes. Especially the latter may
sometimes put a monk to a severe test. Still, he must not kill any. In con-
2.(6.)11.20. Wooden sandals: Vin I 188 (cf. Plants 8). On the other hand, these
rules are hardly practicable for lay followers. According to T vol. 24 no. 1503:
1121b2-4, a pious lay person who is about to move to another place should think:
"Wriggling on the ground, there are many insects. If I inadvertently kill one, what
[is the] 'sin'? When it dies, [may it be?] reborn in heaven!"
71. Vin II 118; IV 49 and 125 (Pacittiya 20 and 62); fa I 198; similarly novices: SrfghT
19-22 (cf. J. M. Duncan Derrett, A Textbookfor Novices, Torino, 1983, pp. 29-32).
Cf. also the detailed exposition of this issue by the Chinese pilgrim I -ching
(Takakusu 1966: 30-33 (= TvoL 54: 208a13 Jf.).-The Brahminical renouncer, too,
is not allowed to drink water unless it has been filtered: BauDhS 2.(6.)11.23; Manu
6.46; cf. Schmidt 1968: 636.
72. Vin II 118; VinMf 173b21 if.; VinDh 954b17 if.; VinSa 273a3 if.; T voL 24:
224c24 if.; Takakusu 1966: 32 with n. 3.
73. VinMf45a8; 373a2l f.; VinSa 79c16f." 97b17f.; Tvol. 23 no. 1442: 789b24"
828b28 f. (two kinds of animalcules are intended: those perceived at first glance,
and those perceived only when the water has run through the strainer); 552b21-25
(animalcules which can be seen only by the 'divine eye' are not intended).
74. According to McDermott (1989: 271 with n. 22) it appears that some modem exe-
getes take the rule to be valid even with regard to microscopic animalcules. Vin-a
785 f. ("if one knows somehow or other that there are animalcules") would seem to
admit of such an interpretation.
trast to the Digambara Jaina ascetics who go naked, Buddhist monks are,
at least, allowed to protect themselves with clothes,75 and the Vinaya
even permits the use of mosquito nets. 76 Apart from this, the monk is
requested to patiently endure mosquitoes and gadflies.
77
As for dan-
gerous animals, a monk who has attained spiritual perfection and does
not identify himself with his body, feelings etc. any more, is simply no
longer afraid of them.
78
In the case of a monk who is still striving for
perfection, awareness of the menace such animals constitute for his life
may be a strong motive for intensifying his spiritual practice.
79
On the
other hand, dangerous animals, especially snakes, may be pacified by
means of suffusing them with loving-kindness (metta, maitrf), 80 or one
may protect oneself from them, or at least remove fear, by recollecting
the Buddha.
81
Other passages, probably addressing, in the first place,
monks living in larger monasteries, recommend avoiding dangerous ani-
mals as much as possible 82 or blocking their access by means of suitable
devices. 83 We also hear of monks who drive animals away if they dis-
turb their meditation, or even have their nests removed,84 or the holes
of mice/rats destroyed. 85
Lay followers have, no doubt, more serious problems with abstaining
from killing any animals. Being responsible for their family and bur-
dened with other tasks, they may not be in a position to put up with dan-
gerous or bothersome animals, or to take the trouble to strain the water
75. MNIlO,4-8.
76. Yin II 119.
77. MN I 10,24-30; Theragilthii vs. 31 = 244. Cf. BaudhDhS 3.3.19 (na druhyed
darrzsamasakiin ... ).
78. Cf., e.g., the equanimity ofthe morne Upasena when bitten by a poisonous snake: SN
IV 40 f.; Upasenasutra 1-12 (E. Waldschmidt, Von Ceylon his Tuifan, Gottingen,
1967, pp. 334 ff. and 339 ff.). Cf. Schmithausen 1997b: 11-14.
79. AN III 101 f.; 306 f.
80. AN II 72 f = Yin II 109 f.; cf. fa II 144 ff. Cf. Schmithausen 1997b: 12 f., 14 f. and
17 if; Maithrimurthi 1999: 55-63; Harvey 2000: 170 f.
81. SNI219f.
82. MNIlO,34-11,5.
83. Yin II 147 f.; cf. Tvol. 24: 823b8-10.
84. VinDh 955a4 f. and 978a20-22 (cf. Silk 1994: 112). Zhabs-dkar (Ricard 1994: 169)
confesses to having chased away an owl that disturbed him by throwing a pebble at
it, but states that he felt remorse afterwards.
85. VinDh 978a24f.
for drin..\::ing or irrigation. In addition, the various activities they have to
perform, for their livelihood or on account of their social position, may,
somehow or other, involve injuring animals.
Comparatively comfortable is the situation of merchants 86 (to whom
Buddhism appears to have appealed from the outset), provided that they
avoid such forms of trade as are closely associated with killing. Accord-
ingly, Buddhist lay followers (upasaka) are prohibited from dealing in
weapons, sentient beings (satta/sattva) , 87 meat and poison.
88
Selling
animals to butchers amounts, of course, more or less to having them
killed. 89
The crucial difficulties of the warrior class with the com-
mitment not to kill any living beings are obvious, fighting, and hence
killing other human beings, being their caste duty. As for animals, how-
ever, some members of the warrior class seem to have taken the precept
not to kill very seriously. E.g., the army leader Sma (a former Jaina lay
follower, by the way!) who, being charged with having entertained the
Buddha with the meat of an animal killed by him precisely for this pur-
pose, declares that he would by no means kill a big living being (which
would seem to mean: an animal big enough to be slaughtered for food),
not even for the sake of saving his life.
90
Still more significant is the
case of an officer who, on a war expedition, carries with him a filtering
cloth for his drinking water in order to single out tiny animals which
otherwise would be swallowed. with the suspicion that he
86. In contemporary Thailand, what is, especially from the perspective of peasants,
most desirable is the position of a white-collar worker since it makes it easy to keep
the precept of not killing living beings (B. J. Terwiel, Boeddhisme in de praktijk,
Assen, 1977, p. 100).
87. According to AN-a III 303, this refers to dealing in humans (i.e. slaves?), whereas
dealing in living animals destined for slaughter or captivity is included in "deal-
ing in'meat". In Hindu law; dealing in animals for slaughter is, according to the
Gautama-Dharmasutra (7.13), prohibited to Brahmins (Schmidt 1997: 210).
88. AN III 208; Arthavini.1cayasutra (ed. N.H. Santani, Patna, 1971) 40,10-12; Tvo!. 24
no. 1487: 1029b25-29 (no selling of various kinds of domestic animals).
89. T vol. 28 no. 1552: 890b20 f.: "Those who, being aware of the killing involved,
raise or sell [sheep for slaughter] or [actually] slaughter [them], are all called 'sheep
slaughterers'." Cf. Ricard 1994: 386: "Kyirong traders, don't buy sheep and goats
from nomads to sell them to the Monpas for slaughter!"
90. Yin I 237'" AN IV 187 f. For parallels see E. Frauwallner, The Earliest Vinaya and
the Beginnings of Buddhist Literature, Rome, 1956, p. 96.
might refuse killing enemies as well, he states that in contradistinction
to the enemies, the animalcules have not done anything wrong against
the ruler whom he owes loyalty. 91 This is precfsely what the
calls "delimited abstention from injury" (see p. 53 with fn. 28), one of
the examples being exactly a warrior who vows to kill only in battle but
not on other occasions. We do not know of an explicit statement of the
idea of "delimited ahil?lsa" in Buddhism, but in the case of the officer
and the army-leader it seems to have been tacitly practiced.
However, in the case of warriors an additional problem may arise
through hunting. For hunting was, in classical India, practiced not only
by tribes or social groups on the lower margin of society as a means of
subsistence, but also by warriors and especially by kings, not so much
for the sake of food
92
as for fun, as exercise and as a demonstration
of one's prowess-a practice expressly sanctioned by the authoritative
texts on Hindu law (dharmasastra) and on the principles of govern-
ment (arthasastra). 93 From the point of view of Buddhist ethics, this is
quite unacceptable. 94 But just as in the case of war even Buddhist rulers
appear, for the most part, to have followed Buddhist norms on the one
hand and nonns of warrior ethics and of the arthasastra on the other,
side by side, unbalanced. 95 Still, in Buddhist texts we do come across the
ideal of a king who gives up hunting, 96 just as the great emperor Asoka,
according to his own words a lay follower of the Buddha, expressly
declares to have done.
97
In a Mahayana Si'itra 98 it is stated that a king
91. VinSa 58a8 ff.; V. Rosen, Der Vinayavibhaliga zum Bhik:fupratimok:fa der
Sarvastivadins, Berlin, 1959, p. 120.
92. Still, this, too, was a motive: cf. Mhbh 13.117.16 if.; Ja 1149 f.; IV 272 f.
93. Cf. E Wilhelm, "Hunting and the Concept of Dharma", in J. Leslie (ed.), Rules and
Remedies in Classical Indian Law, Leiden, 1991, p. 7 ff.; R. Krottenthaler, Die Jagd
im alten Indien, Frankfurt a. M. etc., 1996, p. 13 ff.
94. Cf., e.g., Jm 173,1-4 (25.25); AKBh 243,4 ff. (hunting in a group) and 240,20 (killing
in order to utilize parts of the bodies of animals in order to make money, or for fun
(krfqartham)). Cf. also Harvey 2000: 157 f. We do not know of a canonical sermon
in which the Buddha himself declares hunting as a royal activity to be incompat-
ible with Buddhist ethics. Perhaps in this issue, too, he preferred to leave it to the
addressee to draw consequences from the principles of Buddhist ethics.
95. For Ceylon cf. CulavalJ'lsa 67.54; 70.32 ff.; Geiger 1960: 62; Maithrinmrthi 1986: 21.
96. Cf., e.g., Ja I 149 ff.; MVu I 359 ff. (king stops hunting deer in spite of crop damage
by deer).
97. RE VIII A-D.
98. BoGoc 55b6-8 '" Tva!. 9 no. 272: 328a27-29 and b4 f.; cf. no. 271: 306c23 f.
has to take care that the animals in his kingdom are not injured by hunt-
ers, fishermen, etc., and that he himself should refrain, even in thought,
from injuriIlg any animal whatsoever, which implies that for him hunt-
ing is definitely precluded. He should also not devastate the towns, vil-
lages, ponds, orchards or crops of adversaries because they are also
inhabited by all kinds of animals which have not done anything wrong. 99
In another Mahayana text, we read that the virtue of liberality should
not induce a bodhisattva to teach hunting techniques or to give nets or
traps, or areas inhabited by copious game, to petitioners if this leads to
the slaughter of animals. 100
No less difficult than for warriors is the meticulous observation of the
precept not to kill for peasants, and in their case the problems arise par-
ticularly with reference to animals, both in connection with keeping live-
stock and with agriculture (both being, by the way, prohibited to monks,
at least in Indian Buddhism). 101 As for livestock, making use of oxen,
etc., as draught animals, although admittedly imposing some suffering
upon them, 102 appears to have been generally tolerated in Buddhism, 103
provided that the animals were not mistreated. 104 Also, the utilization
of animal products for food or clothing is normally not found problem-
atic as long as the killing of animals is notinvolved. But if peasants do
99. BoGoe 64a3-7 "Tvol. 9 no. 272: 335b8-13 and 17-21.
100. BoBha 82,23 f. and 82,26-83,2. Cf. Harvey 2000: 158.
101. Vin IV 33 (Piieittiya 10, prohibiting monks from digging the earth); DN 164,24-28
(monks have to abstain from accepting, and hence keeping, domestic animals and
fields; cf. Ramers 1996 [see fn. 20]: 115 f.; K Meisig: Das SriimalJyaphala-satra,
Wiesbaden, 1987, pp. 204-206).
102. Cf. Mil 276,14-277,2.
103. Cf. ibid.; Madhyamaka-hrdaya-kiirikii (ed. Sh. Kawasaki, Issaiehi-shisi5 no Kenkya,
Tokyo, 1992, pp. 407 if.; ChI. Lindtner, Madhyamakahrdayam of Bhavya, Adyar,
2001) IX.37: [domestic] animals have not been created for sacrifice (as the Brah-
mins think), but are for [human] utilization. As the commentary (Peking-Tanjur,
dBu-ma, Dza: 322b3 f.) explains, they originate due to the beneficial karma of the
users (i.e. men) so that milk, butter, wool, etc. become available (and this may also
be the reason why the domestic animals, in contrast to the others, do not disappear
before man at the time of the dissolution of the world: AKBh 178,11 f.; Hob 313b).
As against this, in the Buddhist criticism of Matteo Ricci, the Christian view that
God created the animals for human utilization is expressly rejected: Kern 1992:
56 f.; 104: 266 f.
104. Cf. the textual material in Okano 1998: pp. 428 f. ( 120-123; cf. pp. 266-268
[11-15]) as against pp. 426 f. ( 113-116; cf. pp. 262-264 [4-7]).
slaughter an animal for the sake of getting meat, 105 this would, of course,
be a breach of the precept. Already the mere rearing animals for the sake
of meat is, occasionally, expressly stated to be unwholesome, and so is
selling them to butchers. 106 In agriculture, too, full observation of the
precept is difficult. When ploughing their fields, peasants inevitably kill
or injure small animals on the ground or in the soil, like caterpillars and
dew worms. 107 Even though this is not done intentionally, it is foresee-
able.
los
In addition, the crops are often threatened by birds, mice, rats
and other vermin, or by even larger animals, and predatory animals may
not only attack people but also prey on poultry and livestock. Thus the
peasants' subsistence is in many ways endangered by various kinds of
animals, and a consistent observation of the commitment not to kill any
may be next to impossible for them. 109 Hence, especially in the case of
peasants the fact that the early canonical texts of some schools like the
Theravadins cautiously refrain from emphasizing, with reference to lay
followers, the fact that the precept not to kin animals holds good "even
down to ants" appears well considered. As was pointed out above, a
more rigid inculcation ofthe precept was bound to arouse massive feel-
105. For the issue of meat-eating in Buddhism, see Harvey 2000: 159-165; L. Schmit-
hausen, "Essen ohne zu toten. Zur Frage von Fleischverzehr und Vegetarismus
im Buddhismus", in Perry Schrnidt-Leukel (ed.), Die Religionen und das Essen,
Kreuzlingen, Hugendubel/Diederichs, Mtinchen, 2000, pp. 145-202 (with further
references on pp. 286-288); id.: "meat eating and nature: Buddhist perspectives",
in: Buddhism and Nature. Supplement to the Bulletin of the Research Institute of
Bukkyo University, Kyoto 2005: 183-201. A more detailed investigation is still in
progress.
106. Vi 607a28-b; T vol. 28 no. 1552: 890b20 f. (Dessein 1999: 1168); vol. 24: 1069c23;
Tvo!. 14 no. 441: 208c28 f..
107. Cf. SrfghT 16,16 f.: Because in ploughing worms, etc., are injured a novice should
avoid it.
108. Cf. Gombrich 1971: 245 and 264; Maithrimurthi 1986: 48.
109. Evaluation of agriculture in Buddhist texts varies. At Yin IV 6 agriculture (kasi) is,
along with trade and tending cattle (gorakkha), counted as a respectable (ukkattha)
activity. On the other hand, at MN I 85,30 ff. these activities are considered, from the
viewpoint of the monk, in the context of striving for sensual pleasures, and empha-
sis is placed on the hardship and frustration connected with them. Still more nega-
tive is the evaluation of I-ching (Takakusu 1966: 61 f.; Tvo!. 54: 213b6 ff., esp. b9,
14 f. and 19 f.) who stresses the incompatibility of agriculture with monastic dis-
cipline and especially the inevitable killing tiny animals like worms and insects it
involves.
ings of guilt, if not despair, in social groups who had no other choice
but to kill. 110 People, then, had to resort to means of compensation or
atonement. 111 These, in their turn, had to be, and actually were, made
available by the monastic community or other specialists, who may not
always have missed the opportunity to use them as a welcome source of
income. In later centuries, monIcs also offered rituals and magical for-
mulas for the sake of warding off, driving away or even destroying nox-
ious animals. 112
In spite of its problems, earning one's livelihood as a peasant is not,
of course, the occupation that is the most incompatible with the Buddhist
precept not to kill living beings. As far as animals are concerned, the
situation of people who are directly and permanently involved in killing,
like butchers, hunters, fowlers and fishermen, is worse. In the ancient
and medieval Indian society, it was often non-Aryan tribes or groups on
the lower margin of society who lived by such occupations, hence peo-
ple of bad social reputation. They were, moreover, stigmatized as cruel,
merciless and even full of hatred. 113 When the canonical texts define
the person who contrasts with the one who abstains from killing living
beings, they describe this person in a way that reminds one of represent-
atives of precisely those occupations: he is characterized by [habitually]
taking life, is cruel (ludda, also meaning "hunter"!), with blood sticking
to his hands, devoted to beating and killing, without sympathy for any
living being. 114 In another context butchers, hunters, fowlers and fisher-
men are, along with robbers and people whose occupation includes kill-
110. Cf. Terwie1
3
1994: 170 f.; Huber 1991: 66.
111. Cf. e.g. Holler 2005 : 473 ff. There is, however, also a feeling of thankfulness with
regard to the animals one had to live on, as well as attempts at securing them a
favourable rebirth (Holler 2005 : 497 ; Isabel Lenuck : Zum Gedenken an Nutz-
tiere , in: WtibB 505-523, esp. 511-513 and 519 f.).
112. E.g. Tvol. 19, 729b24 ff.; 730b20-22; 26 f.; c4.f.; 19-21; 731a19 f.; c27 f.; 733b5-7.
Cf. Schmithausen 1997b: 63-65.
113. Cf., e.g., MN 1343,22-25 = AN II 207,7-10 (kurnrakammanta); III 301-303 (esp. 301,9f.
etc.); DNIII 72,18-21 ( ... mi'igavikassa migaY(l disvo. tibbo i'igMto paccuparrhito hoti .. . );
Tva!. I no. 1: 144b9 '" no. 24: 353c13-15 '" no. 25: 408cI 7 f.; LoPra(T) 92b6; AKBh
188,2 f. For the same idea in the Mhbh cf. M. Hara, "On phrases not shared by
the Mahi'ibMrata and the Ri'imi'iyQl}a", in lndologica Taurinensia, 19-20 (1993-94),
pp. 154 f.
114.E.g., MN 1286; AN V 264; T vol. 2 no. 99: 271b20ff.; cf. Y 171,6ff.; DhSk
80,22 ff.
ing or torturing humans, classified as "torturers of others" and contrasted
with those who torture themselves (self-tormenting ascetics), those who
torture both themselves and others (Vedic sacrificers) and those who tor-
ture neither (Buddhists monks). 115 It goes without saying that Buddhists
have avoided these occupations whenever possible (cf. also p. 72), both
for ethical and for social reasons. Some texts warn against social inter-
course with these groups, 116 thus showing that Buddhists, too, endorsed
their discrimination. Birth in such a group was regarded as a calamity, 117
since it more or less condemned a person to an unwholesome livelihood
incompatible with Buddhist norms 118 (unless one became a hermit or
monk). 119 The situation was particularly serious in countries where fish-
ing, hunting or animal husbandry constituted a basic and indispensable
part of the economy, still more so when Buddhism had become the pre-
dominant or even official religion. In these cases, unless non-Buddhists
were available for taking over the negatively viewed jobs, a mitigation
of the precept, either directly or by introducing means of compensa-
tion or atonement or a compassionate saviour like Amida Buddha, was
even more imperative than in the case of peasants. On the other hand,
such alleviations could easily render the precept altogether ineffective
unless some kind of 'middle way' (like "delimited ahif!1sa": see pp. 53
and 63-64) was envisaged, at least in practice.
In the context of putting the ethical norm into practice an impor-
tant point would seem to be the question to what extent, in countries
where Buddhism had become the personal religion of the ruler or even
the official religion, Buddhist norms, and especially the norm not to
kill animals, were implemented in secular law. According to a canoni-
115. See fn. 17.
116. E.g., TSi 293c27-29; SDhPu 166,16-19.
117. Cf. 211,3-7, where it is stated that on account of certain spiritual practices a
bodhisattva is no longer reborn in a family of fowlers, hunters, etc. But cf. also
BoBh 247,22 if., where it is declared that a bodhisattva is voluntarily reborn in pre-
cisely such circles on duscaritacarin cf. BoBh 208,3 f.:
sheep, pig and chicken butchers, etc.) in order to take the lead among them and to
dissuade them from their evil habits.
118. Cf. TSi 292c17 f.: Even though it is the inherited family law of butchers, etc., to kill
animals, this does not save them from the bad karma involved.
119. Cf., e.g., Ja VI 71 :If. (a boy who is born into a family of i.e. hunters, but
shrinks back from killing animals and becomes an ascetic).
cal text, the ideal king, among other things, protects "wild animals and
birds", 120 which would seem to require legal provisions. Actually, in his
edicts the Buddhist emperor Asoka, as is well known, prohibits animal
sacrifices (at least for the capital area) 121 and states that in his.residence
the slaughter of animals for food had been reduced drastically and was
planned to be abolished altogether. 122 He also mentions that on behalf
of both men and (domestic) animals (pasu) he had provided for medical
care and the availability of medicinal herbs as well as for the construc-
tion of wells and the planting of trees along the roads, and he variously
exhorts people not to slaughter or injure animals. 123 In a later edict, 124
he (more realistically) issues a legal prohibition of the killing of certain
species of animals (especially suchas have no economic significance),
whereas in the case of others (he expressly mentions goats, sheep, pigs
and fish) killing is prohibited only under certain circumstances and on
certain days. Other sources, too, occasionally mention so-called "don't-
-kill-days" (ma-ghiita),125 on which the precept not to kill animals had
to be strictly observed. Temporary prohibitions of the killing of ani-
mals (sometimes with the exception of particularly noxious animals)
are documented for many medieval Buddhist countries, especially in
. critical periods. 126
1.3. Treatment of animals in everyday life (Sri Lanka)
For information on the actual treatment of animals in everyday life
by Buddhists in ancient and medieval India we are largely dependent on
stray remarks in the written sources, which have to be utilized with great
120. DNII161; cf. also fa V 123,23 = VI 94,27. In the BoGoc (55b6 f.) it is even stated
that the king has to take care that animals are not bothered by hunters, fishermen,
butchers, or the like.
121. RE I B. On the meaning of hida see Alsdorf 1962: 608 f. OtherWise U. Schneider,
Die GrofJen Felsen-Edikte Asokas, Wiesbaden, 1978, pp. 120 f. (hida = "at the place
of the respective inscription").
122. RE I F-H.
123.REII; PE7R-T.
124. PE 5 (cf. K.R. Norman, Collected Papers I, PTS, Oxford, 1990, pp. 68-76). Cf. also
PE7LL.
125. E.g., Yin I 217.
126. Cf., e.g., Walpola Rahula, History of Buddhism in Ceylon, Colombo, 1956, p. 73
with n. 3; 86; R. Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism, London and New York, 1988,
p. 133; EncBuddh I 21; 291; II1522; Harvey 2000: 158.
caution and awareness of the respective context and )ntention. Since
traditional Buddhism gradually disappeared from mainland India after
ca. 1200, one of the main causes being the destruction of the monastic
centers by the Muslim invasions, the possibility of checking the data
by comparing it with the behaviour of present day indian Buddhists
appears to be excluded. Yet at least in two areas forms of traditional
Indian Buddhism have survived into the present: Sri Lanka and Nepal.
A careful study of how traditional Buddhists in these two countries deal
with animals in everyday life would thus be extremely valuable, both in
itself and because it may give us-albeit with the making of due allow-
ance for conceivable historical change-at least an approximate idea of
the treatment of animals in medieval Indian Buddhists' daily life. Since
Sri Lankan Buddhism (Theravada) and Nepalese Buddhism (Tantric)
belong to quite different strands of the Buddhist tradition, a comparison
of both would also promise to yield interesting results. Still, this kind of
investigation can be fruitful, indeed possible only on the basis of a thor-
ough personal familiarity with everyday life in the respective country
and its cultural background. Unfortunately, neither of us has any such
experience for Nepal. vVe have to confine ourselves to Sri Lanka, rely-
ing on an unpublished study of the subject by M. Maithrimurthi (1986),
based on both written sources (including the writings of contemporary
anthropologists as well as of previous travelers, like Robert Knox), oral
information and personal observation. The extent to which the result is
valid for medieval Indian Buddhists too, is, however, not easy to decide,
presupposing as it does a much more comprehensive collection and
evaluation of data from a wide range of medieval textual sources, an
undertaking that is beyond the scope of this article. Even so, we may not
be totally wrong in presupposing some continuity, at least in the behav-
iour of Buddhists following the Theravada strand.
Another problem is the fact that the situation in Sri Lanka is rapidly
changing under the influence of West em attitudes and values. Two, three
decades ago, however, when M. Maithrimurthi was living in Sri Lanka,
the traditional Buddhist way oflife was still well preserved. Thus, what
is described in this chapter is essentially the traditional behaviour of
Ceylonese Buddhists towards animals as it could be observed a couple
of decades ago, a behaviour that appears to be becoming increasingly
rare. For this reason, we describe the situation mostly in the past tense,
though without intending to exclude thereby that some people still fol-
low traditional patterns.
For BuddhIst monks in Sri Lanka the rules of the Vinaya are still
binding, and the precept not to kill animals is among those which are
considered particularly important. Gombrich mentions a certain sloppi-
ness with regard to (bothersome) insects, 127 but normally a monk will
never intentionally kill an animal, not even an insect or a poisonous
snake, nor order others to do so. 128 At most, he may hint to a lay per-
son that he feels molested by an animal; it is then for the lay person to
decide whether he just removes the animal or, contrary to the Buddhist
norm, kills it. Monks also still strain the drinking water, though without
attaching excessive importance to this.
Much more important for the lot of animals is, of course, the behav-
iour of lay people, who after all not only constitute the majority of the
. population but are also busy with the various forms of exploitation of
nature. What is to be expected is that Buddhist norms make themselves
felt especially in such areas of life where they do not come into con-
flict with vital needs. The commitment not to kill animals will thus be
observed most readily when there is no strong motive for killing. This
is most obvious in the case of such animals as are liked, appreciated or
admired by man, or are at least not a nuisance or danger to him, and
whose body is not needed by him for food or other purposes. Actually,
a traditional Ceylonese Buddhist will rarely kill a harmless animal, e.g.,
a beetle,129 wantonly or for mere fun. For the Buddhist observer, the
behaviour of an Anglican schoolmaster who used to shoot birds just for
fun was simply scandalous. 130 Since the independence of Sri Lanka the
government has been trying to abolish hunting as a sport (a pastime of
kings in the past 131 and later the privilege of the colonial masters).
127. Gombrich 1971: 262.
128. Southwold (1983: 67) reports the case of a monk who ordered a layman to kill a
polanga-a particularly aggressive kind of poisonous snake-, but this has to be
regarded as a rather unusual exception.
129. Cf. Southwold 1983: 68.
130. Heinz Bechert, Buddhismus, Staat und Gesellschaft in den Liindern des Theravilda-
Buddhismus, Bd. 1., Gottingen, 1966, p. 47 (quoting from a biography of Anagarika
Dharmapala); Gombrich 1988 (see fn. 126): 188.
131. See p. 64 with fn. 93.
Not surprising is the fact that in the course of more than two thousand
years of Buddhist influence animal sacrifice has almost disappeared
from Sri Lanka, apart from symbolic remainders (e.g., a few drops of
blood from the comb of a cock being offered to a demon on the occa-
sion of a healing ritual). 132 Likewise, it is unquestionably an effect of the
Buddhist norm that Ceylonese Buddhists tried to refrain from occupa-
tions that were directly or indirectly connected with the killing of ani-
mals. Such occupations were considered disreputable by Buddhists and
were mainly carried out by groups outside or on the margin of Buddhist
society. Butchers and livestock traders were mostly Muslims,133 and
the Buddhist peasants normally did not slaughter animals themselves,
not even smaller ones. 134 Hunting for the sake of meat has been negli-
gible in recent times; 135 in former centuries it was mainly practiced by
the Ceylonese aborigines, the Vaddas.
136
Fishermen constituted a caste
of their own, the Karavas, whose comparatively high social position
seems to have resulted from Christianization and, partly, from a shift
of occupation. 137
Remarkable, and at least partly the effect of the Buddhist reserva-
tions with regard to killing animals, is the fact that keeping livestock for
132. Knox (repr.) 1956-57: 121 f.; Paul Wirz, Exorzismus and Heilkunde auf Cey-
lon, Bern, 1941, p. 65; R. Gombrich, "The Buddhist Attitude to Thaumaturgy",
in P. Kieffer-Ptilz and J.-u. Hartmann (eds.), Bauddhavidyasudhakaral:z: Studies in
Honour of Heinz Bechert, Swisttal-Odendorf, 1997, pp. 165 f. On the recent partici-
pation of Buddhists in animal sacrifices for Kali see ibid.: 166.
133. Gombrich 1971: 261. For Burma: Spiro 21982: 45; for Tibet: Vigoda 1989: 28.
134. According to Terwiel (31994: 168), Thai peasants do often slaughter chickens them-
selves but feel uneasy about it.
135. Gombrich (1971: 255) mentions a "professional hunter", who, however, in full
agreement with the Buddhist norm "said that killing was always a sin". For Burma,
Spiro (21982: 45)remarks: "Burmese hunters, unless they are Christian, are almost
nonexistent" .
136. Knox (repr.) 1956-57: 98; hunting without more precise information on the hunt-
ers: ibid.: 42-44. On hunting in traditional Tibet: Huber 1991: 66-68; 2004; 2005:
442-446; id.: "Green Tibetans: A Brief Social History", in: RJ. Korom (ed.), Tibetan
Culture in the Diaspora, Wien, 1997, pp. 113 f.
137. For their previous lower social status see M.B. Ariyapala, Society in Mediceval Cey-
lon, The Ceylon Government Press, 1956, pp. 289 and 291. For Burma cf. Spiro
21982: 45; for Thailand, Terwiel 31994: 169; for Tibet, e.g. H. Harrer, Return to
Tibet, Penguin Books, 1985, p. 60.
the sake of meat supply 138 was not widespread among Ceylonese Bud-
dhist peasants.
139
Goats were rarely kept by them, pigs almost never. 140
Even chicken farming was practised only on a limited scale, for given
that eggs were considered to be alive, the consumption of eggs was prob-
lematic, breaking them being regarded as an act of killing. 141 Cattle and
buffalo were not kept for the sake of meat, not even, primarily, for the
sake of milk, which was not drunk much and mainly used for preparing
milk-rice, etc., on ceremonial occasions. 142 The main purpose for keep-
ing cattle and buffalo was rather to use them for working in the fields
and as draught animals. 143 During the day, cattle were mostly allowed
to roam about freely. They were tended well and regarded almost like
family members. Propagation worked in a natural way. But ownership
was designated by brands, even though one was aware of the fact that
the procedure was very painful for the animals. 144 Old animals were
often allowed to roam about freely until their natural death, but some-
times were sold to a Muslim trader, though mostly in secret and with a
bad feeling. 145
Disliked animals like crows or stray dogs were at most chased away,
but they were not killed-an exception being rabid dogs-, and cam-
paigns to kill them organized by the Go\;ernment met with the resist-
ance of the people. Pious Buddhists used to give some food to these ani-
mals, which were considered to be particularly miserable. 146 Ceylonese
138. As for meat eating among Ceylonese Buddhists, see Gombrich 1971: 261 f. For the
past (consumption of meat, but rather limited): Knox (repr.) 1956-57: 138; Robert
Percival, An Account of the Island of Ceylon, London, 1803, p. 170; Geiger 1960:
42.
139. Wijesekera 1949: 72; M. Wickramasinghe,Aspects of Singhalese Culture, Colombo,
1952, p. 155.
140. Goats were mainly kept by Tamils and Muslims, pigs by Christians. The keeping of
goats and chickens seems to be much more popular with Buddhist peasants in Thai-
land than in traditional Ceylon: Terwie1
3
1994: 141 f.; 168 f.
141. Gombrich 1971: 261.
142. Geiger 1960: 41 f.; Wijesekera 1949: 142 f.; Wickramasinghe (see fn. 139): 155.
143. Wijesekera 1949: 72. For the following remarks on cattle, see ibid.: 141 f.
144. Novices are prohibited from branding cattle and from perforating their noses
at SrfghT 17,1 f. niilikitavya!:t, na casya niisikal'[l
vedhayet).
145. Similarly in Thailand: Terwie1
3
1994: 169.
146. Cf. p. 7 with fn. 56.
Buddhists normally avoided killing, at any rate directly killing, even
animals that were unwelcome in the living area. As for spiders, cock-
roaches, flies and mosquitoes, one tried to drive or keep them away by
means of sweeping, burning certain herbs or the like. When such ani-
mals crawled or landed on one's body, one did not usually swat them but
rather swept them off with the hand. 147 Even lice, ticks and leeches 148
were often merely removed alive and thrown away, though not all peo-
ple followed the precept rigidly in such cases. The same holds good for
poisonous animals like scorpions, centipedes or snakes: they too were
often not killed but were rather trapped and set free in a remote place, 149
as were also rats. Sometimes the box which contained the poisonous ani-
mal was thrown into a river. The possibility that theammal might drown
was simply suppressed, for this was not one's intention, and the animal
was thought to have, after all, a chance to survive.
The cobra was especially respected. 150 People attributed supranor-
mal power to it and were very much afraid of its revenge. There existed
a belief that a deceased person might return to his or her home in the
form of a cobra in order to protect the children. For this reason as well
as others the cobra was often tolerated and even worshiped with offer-
ings. If people wanted to get rid of one, it was asked to move to another
place or was removed in the way described earlier in connection with
other poisonous animals. But one did not kill it except in an emergency.
In the case of the most aggressive and dangerous snake, the polanga,
scruples to kill it appear to have been much fewer, but really pious Bud-
dhists would not have killed such an animal either, even if it happened
to find its way into the house or lived in the vicinity. 151
147. Similarly in Burma: Spiro 21982: 45 f. As against this, Terwie1 (31994: 168) notes
for Buddhist peasants in Thailand that "behaviour towards mosquitoes is merci-
less". The divergence may partly be due to reference being, in each case, to a differ-
ent stratum of the Buddhist population, but it may also result from a difference of
the extent to which the culture as a whole of the twocollntries has come to be effec-
tively permeated by Buddhist values.
148. Knox (repr.) 1956-57: 41; R. Raven-Hart (R.), Ceylon-History in Stone, Colombo,
1964, pp. 7 and 137. Cf. also Vigoda 1989: 30 (Tibet).
149. Similarly in Burma: Spiro 21982: 46. For the Jains: Alsdorf (see fn. 121): 564.
150. John Davy, An account of the interior of Ceylon and of its inhabitants with travels in
that island, London, 1821, p. 62 f.; Henry Charles Sirr, Ceylon and the Cinghalese,
London, 1850, p. 207; Gombrich 1971: 167 and 262; Southwold 1983: 67.
151. Southwold 1983: 67.
The inevitability of killing or injuring animals in the soil in the course
of ploughing; etc., has already been mentioned (p. 66). Ceylonese Bud-
dhist peasants did regret that animals died or were maimed as a result.
They either consoled themselves with the idea that damaging the ani-
mals had not been their intention, or they attributed the fact that they
had been born as peasants and hence were unable to avoid activities
like ploughing to their former bad karma. Yet there was still the addi-
tional problem of animals damaging crops, trees and fruit. With regard
to these, too, the Buddhist precept not to ldll did have some effect. E.g"
people generally tolerated a certain participation of animals like squir-
rels or bats in the consumption of fruit or even left them a branch or a
whole tree, or reserved part of a rice-field for birds during the harvest. 152
For the rest, one was normally content with cbasing the animals away or
warding them off by means of magic formulas. It could, however, hap-
pen that low caste Buddhists would undertake to kill smaller animals
regarded as noxious. 153
These general statements are not, of course, meant to exclude the
possibility that in cases of emergency peasants, especially if they lived
in the vicinity of wild areas, also tried to protect their fields against dev-
astation by larger animals, above all elephants, by violent means, and
thereby disregarded the precept. 154 Even so, persons had (and still have)
considerable scruples about killing animals. But the growing need for
cultivated land and the ensuing shrinkage of the habitat of wild animals
aggravates the conflict, especially the conflict between peasants and
elephants, and leads to an increasing readiness for violence on the part
of the former. Perhaps even more alarming is the effect of some aspects
of modern methods of agriculture, particularly of chemical pesticides
which have been used lavishly by Sri Lankan peasants because there is
no traditional counterbalance, and because the fact that pesticides work
for the most part indirectly or only after some delay makes it easy for
the peasants to brush aside any scruples. 155
152. Cf. fa IV 281,22-24.
153. For the less scrupulous behaviour of Thai peasants see Terwie1
3
1994: 168.
154. Knox (repr.) 1956-57: 36 (elephants); 43 (deer, tigers, hogs).
155. Thus also, for Thailand, Terwiel 31994: 168. According to Southwold (1983: 67),
however, the peasants in the village investigated by him used ihsecticides, "though
with a certain remorse and sadness". According to Spiro e1982: 45) the Burmese
2. Position and evah.llation of animals as a form of existence
2.1. The doctrine ofreblrth: The possibility of transition to other
forms of existence
Of crucial importance for the Buddhist view of animals is the doc-
trine of reiterated rebirth. In the fully developed doctrine, sentient beings
belong to one of five destinies (gati): gods (deva), humans, manes or hun-
gry spirits (preta), animals, hell-beings, 162 to which sometimes anti-gods
(asura) are added as a sixth destiny. 163 Occasionally, further classes of
mythical beings are mentioned, 164 but these have normally come to be
subsumed under one or the other destiny of the standard set, mainly
under animals. 165 All of these destinies are temporary. In a couple of
canonical passages, all five destinies are stated to be 'pervious', in the
sense that, in principle, a being may, at death, pass over from any des-
tiny to any other (although some transitions are much more probable
than others). 166
Such a view may, however, not have prevailed from the outset. 167
In probably older strands of the canon we come across a different
model, according to which a deceased person returns (paccajayati) to
human existence after a sojourn in the yonder world. 168 Originally, the
return was probably considered to take place more or less automati-
cally when the impulse to which the sojourn in the yonder world was
due had become exhausted. According to the Buddhist texts, the sojourn
in the yonder world may take place either in an agreeable place (sug-
ati) or in a disagreeable one (duggati), according to one's karma. 169 In
162. E.g., DN III 234; MN 173; AN IV 459.
163. E.g., DN III 264; Theragatha vs. 1128; Therfgathti vs. 475; Sn 231 (with comm.);
VisM XII1.93; MVu I 30. Cf. Hob 40 if.
164. E.g. AN II 38 f.; cf. also DN II 57,7-11.
165. Hob 312a49 if.; cf. also 41b-42a.
166. SN V 474-477; AN 137 f. Cf. also MPPU 175bl if. and Lamotte 1949: II 952 f.
167. For the following cf. T. Vetter, The Ideas and Meditative Practices of Early Bud-
dhism, Leiden, 1988, pp. 77 if.
168. E.g., SN 193-95 '" AN II 85 f. (on account of the construction with the accusative,
it is preferable to read, with the Burmese ed., upapajjati instead of uppajjati.). For
possibl,e antecedents of this rebirth pattern see L. Schmithausen, "Mensch, Tier,
Pfianze und der Tod", in G. Oberhammer (ed.), 1m Tad gewinnt der Mensch sein
Selbst, Osterr. Akad. d. Wissensch., Wien, 1995, pp. 43-74, esp. 49-51 and 58 if.
169. Cf. the passages quoted in fn. 159.
a frequently recurring formula, the agreeable place is equated with the
heavenly world, and the disagreeable one is called misfortune (apiiya) ,
downfall (vinipata) and even hen (niraya). 170 The last term, disrupting
the "Waxing Syllable Principle", 171 may be a particularly sinister alter-
native to the preceding concepts or even a secondary extension of the
clicM. The other terms may originally have referred to some kind of
gloomy underworld. It is not impossible that they also included, if only
vaguely, the possibility of rebirth as an animal, but this is, at any rate, not
evident from the aforementioned set of quasi-synonyms. On the other
hand, a passage of the Mahanidanasutra 172 does refer, in the context of
rebirth, to not only gods, mythical beings and humans but also to quad-
rupeds, birds, reptiles and fish, 173 but not to hell or to an underworld or
hungry spirits. 174 Such discrepancies suggest that the details of disagree-
able afterlife were not clearly conceived of from the outset and came to
be elaborated and systematized only somewhat later.
Such an elaboration is supplied by some canonical texts which start
from the above-mentioned pattern of an alternation between human
existence and sojourn in a yonder world but at the same time clearly
specify the disagreeable yonder world as hell, and carefully, almost
170. E.g., DN I 82.
171. Cf. Mark Allon, Style and Function, The International Institute for BuddhistStudies,
Tokyo, 1997, p. 224.
172. DN II 57,7-11. Parallels: T voL 1 no. 14: 242a20-22 (An shih-kao: probably
Sarvastivada); no. 26: 578c7-9 (Madhyamagama: Sarvastivada); no. 52: 844b28-c1
(school?); vol. 26 no. 1537: 513b8 f. (Dharmaskandha: Sarvastivada) DhSk 67,3-7
(probably Miilasarvastivada).
173. Strangely enough, the quadrupeds are missing in the Sarvastivada versions (and
perhaps T no. 52, which however appears to have abbreviated the list). Instead,
these sources as well as DhSk and T no. 52 mention fishes or aquatic animals which
are missing in the PaIi version. In TvoL I no. 1: 60cl if. (Dfrghagama of the Dhar-
maguptakas) the whole enumeration is missing. Moreover, attention should be paid
to the fact that the text does not explicitly state that all the Iisted forms of (re)birth
are available for man. Disregarding the context, one might even take the text to state
nothing else than that all these classes of beings can only die because they have
been born (but not necessarily: reborn, though this would indeed seem to be implied
as soon as the whole context is taken into account).
174. Cf. the fact that these are also not mentioned in the rebirth passages of the older
either: cf. Schmithausen 1995 (see fn. 168): 52 if., esp. 67. On the other
hand, the Petavatthu talks, naturally, about hungry ghosts (peta) and also about hell
but does not speak of rebirth as an animal.
sadistically, depict various kinds of torture. 175 It is obviously only in a
second step (the respective portion in one of the texts is still clearly rec-
ognizable as an insertion)176 that rebirth as an animal was added to the
sojourn in hell as a mitigated alternative, 177 or, in other sources, as an
intermediate stage on the way back from hell to human existence. 178
In this connection, it may be worth mentioning a canonical text
according to which a person who practices the so-called dog or bull
observance (i.e. behaves like a dog or a bull) 179 will at best be reborn as
a dog or a bull, but may even go to hell, especially ifhe has been holding
the wrong view that his observance will lead him to heaven. 180 Another
text states that a person who, committing crooked (jihma) actions (like
killing living beings, etc.), "sneaks about" (sarrzsappati) , so to speak,
takes a crooked course after death and falls into the womb of an animal
that "sneaks about", like snakes, scorpions, centipedes, mongooses, cats,
mice, owls, etc. 181
In later sources, the qualitative correspondence between one's con-
duct in this life and the species of animals into which one is reborn is
further elaborated. 182 Thus hatred-being regarded as corresponding to
poison-is stated to entail rebirth as a poisonous snake or as some other
poisonous animal 183. People who, on accgunt of wrong views, engage in
futile disputes will be reborn, after a sojourn in hell, as animals that are
175. E.g., MN III 166 f. and 183; fa V 266-270.
176. MNIII 167-169; cf. Vetter 1988 (seefn. 167): 93 f. One Chinese version even goes,
so far as to add another paragraph, on rebirth as a preta!
177. MN 174 f. and 111179 (animals-and the realm of the deceased (pettivisaya)-side
by side with aptiya ... niraya); III 165 if.; DNI 228; ANI 60.(persons with evil con-
duct can look forward to a sojourn in hell (niraya) or rebirth as an animal, whereas
persons with good conduct go to the gods or are reborn as humans). Cf. TSi 301b16
f. (bad karma mixed with wholesome one leads to rebirth as an animal).
178. E.g. Therfgatha vs. 434 if.; fa I 238; T vol. 1, 761a14 f. + b22; SDhSmr 103c28 if.;
104a23-25; TSi 301b12 f.; Hob 316a49 if. This pattern is also frequent in Brahmini-
cal literature; cf. P.v. Kane, History of Dharmatistra, IV, Poona, 1973f, pp. 153 f.;
172f.
179. Cf. faiminfya-BrtihmalJa 2.113 andAKBh 241,8-10.
180. MNI 387-389.
181. AN V 289 (" T vol. 2 no. 99: 273c21 if.).
182. Cf. Hob 314a34 if.; MPPU 175a12 if. (Lamotte 1949: II 951 f). Still more detailed
expositions of this subject are found in Brahminical sources (e.g. Manu 12.53 if.).
183. Vi 257c11 f.; TSi 301b19; MPPU 175a19 f (Lamotte 1949: 11 952). Hatred in com-
bination with the mundane cultivation of dhytina and the attainment of supranormal
by nature hostile to each other, like the snake and mongoose, horse and .
buffalo, or crow and owl. 184 Those who have run riot in villages so as
to terrorize the inhabitants and to expel them from their houses will be
reborn as deer, always frightened and living in the wilderness; 185 A per-
son who verbally abused another person by calling the other an ape or
a dog will be reborn as an ape or a dog, respectively. 186 The Atthasalinl
refers to cases in which the killing or torturing of an animal entailed an
analogous punishment in a later human or animal existence, as, e.g., the
case of a monk who was locked in his cave by a landslide for seven days
because in a former life he had wantonly barred the hole of a monitor
lizard for just the same period. 187 According to the Sa:q1mitlya version of
the Lokaprajiiapti, people who have injured or mistreated animals in this
life will, time and again, suffer the same kind of injury or mistreatment
in hell. E.g., a person who chopped or flayed animals alive will in turn
be chopped or flayed by the guardians of hell (narakapala}.188 One who
drove animals into fire or made them walk through embers or hot sand
will be dragged up and down ember mountains,189 one who smashed
the heads of fish, snakes or centipedes will get his head smashed. 190 A
person who smoked out foxes, badgers, bees or even mosquitoes will
be chased into pungent smoke. 191 Those wh() broke in elephants, horses
and draught animals by force will have human bodies but the heads of
elephants, horses, oxen, etc., and will be yoked by the hell-guardians to
chariots made of glowing iron. 192 A person who squashed Hceor fleas
faculties (like soaring in the air?) may entail rebirth as a vulture: SDhSmr 104a21-24
'" SDhSmr(T) vol. 'u: 329b8-330al (cf. Hob 314b51-315a5).
184. SDhSmr 103c5-13 '" SDhSmr(T) vol. 'u: 328bl-4. Cf. Hob 314a40-47.
185. SDhSmr 103c25-104a4 '" SDhSmr(T) vo!. 'u: 329a2-6. Cf. Hob 314b9-17.
186. TSi 301b26 f.; Ricard 1994: 354 f. This idea is also met with in Sri Lanka.
187. Atthasalinf (PTS, London, 1897) 272 f ( 563).
188.LaPra(Ch) 207b4 f. and 23-25; 208a19 ff. and 28 f. (cf. LaPan 93,1 and 15-17;
96,6-11; trans!. 89 f.; 91 f. with ns. 26 and 27; MVu 110,9 f. and 16,13-15; 19,6-12).
189. LaPra(Ch) 209a26-b7 (cf. LaPan 99,22-100,10; trans!. 94). Cf. also 211c11 ff. and
19 f. (LaPan 108,9-17; trans!. 100).
190. LaPra(Ch) 21Oa16-18 and 27-29 (LaPan 103,5 f. and 11-14; trans!. 96).
191. LaPra(Ch) 208b6 ff. and 14-16 (cf. LaPan 96,11-18; trans!. 92; MVu 20,5-9); cf.
209c25-29 and 21Oa5-7 (LaPan 102,7-10 and 15-18; trans!. 96; MVu 22,10-13 and
23,1-4).
192. LaPra(Ch) 208c19 ff. and 28 f. (LaPan 98,16-99,5; trans!. 93). Similarly, people who
pursued living beings (cattle and game?) with sticks and knives and caught them
will be crushed under mountains as in an oil-press. 193'One who reared
animals like lions, tigers or dogs and let them bite or eat other sentient
beings will be lacerated by hell-dogs or other predatory animals, 194 and
people who feed animals for the sake of slaughtering them and eating
their meat will, in hell, be revived by a cool breeze just in order to be
tortured and killed again. 195
Some passages even remind one of the archaic principle of revenge
taken by the victim on the killer. 196 Thus, a canonical text mentions the
case of a former fowler who is, in his subsequent existence, a lump of
flesh flying through the air, pursued and lacerated by vultures, crows,
etc. 197 According to another text, a ram who is about to be sacrificed by
a Brahmin is stated to have formerly been a Brahmin who had sacrificed
a ram. 198 Persons who hunt deer by means of battue or birds by means
of a falcon will, after a sojourn in hell, be reborn as deer or birds and
will then be the hunted, 199 and those who boil silk worms will, sooner
or later, be reborn as silk-worms. 200 In modern-day Vavurukannala (Sri
Lanka), we saw a picture with, first, a representation of two young men
slaying a snake, and then with a representation of them again, in the yon-
der world, being devoured by a big snake. Although these cases clearly
show the formal structure of the victim taking revenge upon the evil-
will be cattle-, deer- and boar-headed and will be encircled and massacred by the
hell-guardians (LoPra[ChJ209a3-11; LaPan 99,6-14; transl. 93 f.).
193. LoPra(Ch) 209bl 1 ff. (esp; 17 f.) and b26 f. (LaPan 100,10 ff., esp. 16 f., and 101,2
f.; transl. 94 f.; MVu 21,5-15).
194.LaPra(Ch) 210b20-22 and c4-6; 212a17-19 and 23-25 (LaPan 104,10-12 and
19-21; 109,17-19 and 110,1-4; transl. 97; 101; MVu 24,9 and 24,15-25,1); cf. also
211c28-212a4 and 212a10-12 (LoPan 109,3-7 and 12-14; transL 100). In the
*Upasakasalasutra (T voL 24 no. 1488: 1050a2 f.; Shih 1994: 82), a pious lay fol-
lower is prohibited from keeping cats and raccoon dogs; similarly FWCh 1007b13
(for badhisattvas).
195. LaPra(Ch) 207b25-28; 21Oc7 f.; 212a26 f. (LaPan 93,17-20; 104,21-105,3; 110,4-7;
transl. 90; 97; 101; MVu 16,15-17,2; 25,1-4).
196. Cf. also Schmithausen 2000a: 262-268.
197. SN II 256 (no. 3) '" Vin III 106. In other sermons of this group, other persons whose
occupation was based on slaughter or hunting are equally pursued by the same kind
of birds. The Chinese parallels (Tvol. 2 no. 99: 135b-137a) are similar, but as far as
I can see none corresponds exactly to no. 3 of the PaH set.
198. fa I 166 f. Cf. also IV 29 f.
199. SDhSmr 27c13 f. and 20 f. "SDhSmr (T) vol. 'u: 155a3 and 6 f.
200. SDhSmr 104a7 f. and 11 f " SDhSmr (T) vol. 'u: 329a8 and b 1 f.
doer, it is not said that the animal taking revenge is in fact the same indi-
vidual as the victim. There is, however, identity of the persons involved
when a person who has borrowed something but failed to return it is
expected to be reborn as a domestic animal of the creditor
201
(a clever
device, by the way, of legitimizing the utilization of the working power
of domestic animals). Here, however, it is not a question of revenge or
retaliation but rather of compensation, which is quite different from an
ethical point of view: Yet even the idea of individual revenge is occa-
sionally preserved: in the V i b h a ~ a , we hear of a wolf who has robbed
a child and, being caught by somebody, explains that the mother of
this child had killed or eaten her, the wolf's, own child in many previ-
ous lives and that she in her turn had each time taken revenge, and was
now going to do so again, by killing/eating the woman's child.
202
Simi-
larly, in a Theravada commentary we find the story of a hen whose eggs
and chickens are time and again eaten by a cat and who takes revenge
by being reborn as a tiger who eats the young of the cat that has been
reborn as a deer. 203
Even if we assume that at least in special cases 204 rebirth of a human
as an animal was considered possible from the outset, the doctrine of
rebirth does not seem to have been the ideological starting-point of the
commitment not to kill living beings, including animals. 205 At any rate,
in the canonical texts there is no evidence of an argument that derives
the abstention from killing animals, or any other ethical attitude towards
them, from the idea that all living beings were, at some time or other
in the course of the beginning1ess sequence of rebirths, one's own close
201. TSi 301c15 f.; Maithrimurthi 1986: 52 f.; Chapple 1993: 34.
202. Vi 60a9-13 and 520a6-10 " Vi2 45b5-10 and 376a25-28.
203. Dhammapada-a?(hakatha I 48 (ad Dhammapada vs. 5).
204. E.g., in the case of the bull or dog observance mentioned above (p. 80 with fn. 180),
esp. if the alternative of falling into hell were to be regarded as a secondary
extension.
205. When Schmidt (1968: 650) states that "Since its earliest occurrence the ahiJp.sa-
doctrine is connected with the belief in metempsychosis", he probably wants to point
out that in the sources at our disposal the ahilJlsa-doctrine occurs, from the outset, in
combination with the belief in metempsychosis or rebirth. This does not, however,
necessarily imply the ahilJlsa-doctrine originated as an ethical corrollary derived
from the rebirth doctrine, in the sense that in view of the mutual 'perviousness' of at
least the human and the animal form of existence we must treat animals as (former)
humans or even (former) relatives that happened to be reborn as animals.
relatives (father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter). 206 This idea is, to
be sure, already found in the early canon, but it is only in later sources
that the argument is used for motivating 10ving-kindness
207
or absten-
tion from meat-eating. 208 In the canon, it is merely adduced with the aim
of illustrating the unfathomable time one has already spent in the begin-
ningless sequence of rebirths and in order to motivate striving for lib-
eration.
209
For the same purpose, monks are also asked to contemplate
the innumerable existences as an animal they themselves have already
passed through in the course of beginningless sa1J1-siira, and to realize
that if one were to collect all the blood that was spilled when they were
slaughtered as cattle, sheep, goat, chicken, etc., it would be even more
than the water of all the four oceans. 210
2.2. Evaluation of animal existence
Both in and outside India the attitude towards animals is often ambiv- -'II
alent. On the one hand, animals (or at least certain animals) are viewed
as similar to humans in many regards, sometimes with mysterious or
dangerous faculties, to be treated with respect (even if one has to ward
them off or kill them for some reason). On the other hand, they are con-
sidered inferior to man and are (more or less relentlessly) exploited.
Buddhist animal ethics, focusing on the fact that animals are sentient
beings like us, seems to derive more from the first attitude. Yet the treat-
ment of and respect for animals as sentient individuals, clinging to life
and afraid of death and pain, has to be strictly distinguished from the
evaluation of species of animals or of biodiversity, or, again, of animal
existence as such. As for the latter aspect, the Buddhist tradition is some-
what ambiguous.
206. Nor, of course, from a basic relationship of man and animals in the sense of the
modern theory of evolution.
207. VisM IX.36; SrBhil 379,8 ff.
208. TBd. 2 no. 120 (Angulimalfyasiltra): 540c23-26 (cf. Seyfort Ruegg 1980: 236); LAS
245,10 ff.; T Bd. 24: 1006b9 ff.; Kern 1992: 86; Ricard 1994: 232 and 327. In the
context of both killing and meat-eating: T vol. 14 no. 441: 208b27 f. (= 268all f.
and 378a22 f.).
209. SNII 189 f. (nos. 14-19) '" Tvol. 2 no. 99: 243a6-12 '" no. 100: 488a26--b5; cf. Ybhil
198,4-6. Cf. Schmithausen 2000b: 66 f.
210. SN II 187 f. '" T vol. 2 no. 99: 240b12-clO '" no. 100: 485c5-24; cf. Ybhil
196,14-19.
2.2.1. The 'doctrinal strand': negative evaluation
of animal existence
A strong if not predominant strand of the Buddhist tradition, which
we shall call the 'doctrinal strand' because this view has become the
common doctrinal position in later Buddhism, has adopted a rather neg-
ative judgment on existence as an animal. In this strand, existence, or
rebirth, as an animal is normally included in the evil forms of existence
(duggati) , 211 misfortune (apaya) 212 or downfall (vinipata) , 213 along with
hell and existence as a hungry spirit (preta), and in contrast to human
existence which is classified as a favourable form of existence (sugati).
This judgment appears to be based on three assumptions:
Firstly, animal existence is regarded as much more disagreeable and
painful than human existence. 214 According to the "Sermon on the Fool-
ish and the Wise" (Balapwujitasutta) of the Majjhimanikaya, horses, cat-
tle, sheep and goats live on grass, dogs and pigs on excrement, worms in
the darkness of the soil, fish in the water, and maggots in putrid flesh. 215
This is all very unpleasant and dis gusting-from a human point of view,
to be sure. Still worse (and perhaps not only from a human perspective)
is the constant threat of hunger and thirst, even starvation, of cold and
heat, and, last but not least, of predators and parasites.
216
In addition,
animals are exploited, mistreated and pursued by man.
217
In short,
211. AN III 339.
212. Hob 31Ob50 if. In the Hili canon sUbsumption of animals under apiiya is suggested
by passages like DN II 93, and it also appears to be presupposed at Sn 231; still,
explicit specifications of apiiya as including animals seem to be found only in later
texts: cpo Critical Piili Dictionary s. v. apiiya (2). According to VisM XIII. 93 animals
are, in view of the mythical niigas being classified as animals (snakes), only apiiya
but not duggati.
213. The term vinipiita clearly refers to animals at MNIII 169,22'" SN V 456,6.
214. MN I 74 f.; AN III 353; MVu I 27,4 f. and 10 if.; T Bd. 13, 262a27; b3-5. Cf. also
Tson-kha-pa, Lam rim chen mo (Qing-hai 1985), 124,20 if. and 125,8 if.
215. MNIII 167 f.; cf. TSi 294b13 f.; Tson-kha-pa (see fn. 214),125,8 f.
216. Ybha 87,13 f.; Tvo!. 3, 467b19 if.; vo!. 13, 262b1 f. (cf. Hob 314a17 if.); Divyiivadiina
(ed. P.L. Vaidya, Darbhanga, 1959),273,31 f.:
duf:!kham; Madhyamakalu:daya (see fn. 103) IX.l08ab: bhftais
tiryagbhif:! durlabhotsavaif:!; Tvo!. 32 no. 1647: 375c28 f.; G. Tucci, Minor Buddhist
Texts II, Roma, 1958, p. 188,14-16. Cf. also Tson-kha-pa (see fn. 214),125,3 f.
217. Ybha 87,14-16; T voL 13, 262b2; voL 25, 175a13 f.; vol. 32 no. 1647: 375c28 f.;
Tucci 1958 (see fn. 216): 188,16-23. Cf. also Tson-kha-pa (see fn. 214), 124,18-20
(= Suhrllekha 90) and 125,9.
it is not easy to fully describe how unhappy animals are! 218
It matters little that one or the other animal may be better off, espe-
cially one that had, in a previous existence as a human, accumulated
not only bad karma but also some 'merit' on account of gifts to ascet-
ics and Brahmins
219
(a suggestion whose main purport may have been
to encourage openhandedness): on the whole, animals are considered
to be unhappy.
In addition, existence as an animal is unfavourable because animals
lack the faculty of discriminative insight (panna, prajna). Animals, at
least the so-called higher animals, may, to be sure, be able to concen-
trate their attention and even draw certain inferences (manasikara) , 220
but lacking discriminative insight they are not capable of understanding
the true nature of existence and hence cannot attain liberating insight. 221
218.MN III 169,6-8. Cf. also AN III 353,16-20; MVu I 27,2-5 and 10-13.
219.AN V 271 f.: a malefactor who provided ascetics and Brahmins with food, etc.,
receives, in his turn, food, etc., after having been reborn as an elephant, horse, cow
or dog (cf. TSi 301b23 f.); SDhSmr 103c14-19 SDhSmr(T) vol. 'u: 328b4-7 (cf. Hob
314a47-b2): Couples who have made donations with the wish to be husband and
wife again in their next life will, if they are reborn as animals, be monogamous ani-
mals like jfvalJ1jfva or cakraviika (ruddy goose), and will enjoy some pleasure and
less suffering than most animals. A similar explanation is, by the way, also given for
rebirth among mythical animals like the powerful niigas/snakes: cf. SN III 240 ff.;
MPPU 175a27-29 (Lamotte 1949: II 952).
220. On the view that animals were, in former times, capable of speech but later on lost
this capacity cf. Hob 313a45 ff.; SBhV II 96,23 f.; Okano 1998: 263, 267, 427 and
429. For a discussion of this issue see also Deleanu 2000: 82 n. 7.-According to
Vi 59c26-60a19 '" Vi2 45a24-b17, some animals can even remember their previous
existences (purvaniviisanusmrti) and know other individuals' thoughts (paracitta-
jiiiina).
221. Milindapaiiha 32,25 ff.; Yasomitra, Abhidharmakosavyiikhyii (ed. U. Wogihara)
541,6 f.; T vol. 13: 262a26; vol. 40: 611a12; cf. Hob 31Ob3 f. and 313b54. Cf.
also Tson-kha-pa (see fn. 214): 125,4-6. On the problem of the precise meaning
of manasikiira in the Mil passage, see Deleanu 2000: 123 and 124-127. Mil enu-
merates goats, sheep, cows, buffalo, camels and asses as (surely: examples of) ani-
mals having manasikiira. It is worth noting that the word yoniso, which had quali-
fied manasikiira in the preceding discussion, is omitted in connection with animals.
The Chinese version of the passage (Tvol. 32 no. 1670: 697a20 f. and 707b17 f.)
is slightly different: "Ie bceuf, Ie cheval, les six animaux domestiques ont chacun
leur sagesse (n. 8: ... A: .. , sagesse et habilete ) propre; leur pensee n'est point
pareiUe [a celle des hommes]" (P. Demieville, "Les versions chinoises du Milinda-
paiiha", in BEFEO 24 (1924), p. 104). Cf. also AN III 353,16-20, where it is stated
ATTITUDES TOWARDS ANIMALS IN IN;)IAN BUDDHISM 87
This is, at least according to this strand, the decisive difference between
man and animals, and the one which, from a Buddhist point of view, Con-
stitutes the essential superiority of human existence over animal exist-
ence. In view of this difference it is also plausible that persons who have
attained higher insight are considered to be no longer liable to being
reborn as an animal, 222 and also that animals cannot be ordained, for the
purpose of ordination is the practice of the path to liberation. 223
Finally, animals are, in this strand, often even regarded as immor-
al. 224 As the BiilapaIJ4itasutta puts it,
they lack moral behaviour, virtuous behaviour, wholesome action, meri-
torious action. [Rather,] among them, [the rule] prevails that one devours
the other, that [the stronger] devours the weaker. 225
Animals have no mercy. 226 Some are also immoral on account of
their promiscuity or committing incest. 227 Here, the natural, instinctive
behaviour of animals is judged by standards of human, more precisely
Buddhist morality, in the perspective of which it inevitably appears to be
wicked.
228
This, however, implies that just by following their instincts
animals accumulate bad karma and thus almost inevitably block their
that there is no other fetter constituting such an obstacle [to liberation] as (hell and)
animal existence.
222. Cf., e.g., DN II 93; SrBhu 501,19; AKBh 221,19.
223. This is, at any rate, the reason given by the text itself (Vin I 87 f.; cf. H. Hartel,
KarmavCicanCi, Berlin, 1956, p. 80). It is not easy to see what kind of animals might
actually have been ordained. According to the text, it was a mythical animal, a nCiga,
who had assumed human form but during sleep re-assumed his natural form of a
giant snake so that a monk became terribly scared.
224. According to Tvo!. 14 no. 468: 498c7 f., animals (birds, mammals, insects, etc.) are
lowly creatures that have few if any "roots of what is wholesome" (*kusalamala).
See below p. 95 but also p. 96.
225. MN III 169,6-8. Cf. MVu I 27,7 f.; T vo!. 3 no. 184: 467b19 ff.; no. 185: 475c12 f.;
vo!' 13: 262a26ff. and b3.
226. Tvo!. 13: 262a26 f.
227. DN III 72, AN 151, Itivuttaka 36: goats and sheep, cocks and pigs, dogs and jack;-
als have no idea of mother, aunt, etc., and do not make a difference [in their sex-
ual behaviour: AN-a II 97,1; Itivuttaka-a 159,31 f.]; MVu I 27,6 f.; Sn-a I 357,18f.;
ParamatthamafijasCi (ed. Rewatadhamma, Varanasi, 1969) II: 1007,6 f. (quotation;
ad VisM Xly'91). Cf. Tvo!. 13: 262a26 (animals do not know shame). On this point
see also Deleanu 2000: 85 n. 16.
228. Cf. also Zhabs-dkar's lack of understanding for the hunting instinct of the eagle
which he takes as a wicked impulse (see fn. 294).
chance for a higher rebirth. Once one has fallen into animal existence, a
return to human existence is extremely difficult. 229 Since devouring the
weaker is adduced as the reason, it is not surprising that according to a
later source such a return is especially difficult for predatory animals, 230
who are in particular regarded as "wicked beasts",231 not only from an
everyday perspective (because they are dangerous to man) but also from
an ethical point of view. It is hence probably they, as also poisonous ani-
mals, who are in the first place meant when some sources state that ani-
mals may even be reborn in hell. 232 Yet the question whether in the case
of animals killing one's father or mother is, as in the case of humans, to
be considered an iinantarya offence (i.e. one for which one, immediately
after death, inevitably goes to hell) 233 is mostly answered in the negative.
One reason is that animals are, by nature, incapable of intense shame or
reverence; hence they cannot be charged with a violation of these vir-
tues either, i.e. with intense shamelessness or irreverence, which in the
case of humans make such deeds so grave. 234
It is a logical consequence of such a negative evaluation of exist-
ence as an animal that in an ideal world there should be no animals, just
because they constitute an unfortunate form of existence. According to
a post-canonical Theravada source, the fact (true at that time but hardly
today) that there are, on earth, many animals but few humans indicates
that the world is in a bad condition.
235
According to the Sermon on
Things Primeval (Aggafifiasutta), in the ideal time immediately follow-
ing the re-evolution of the earth there are no animals but only luminous,
229. See p. 106 with fns. 312 and 314.
230. LAS 252,5-10.
231. E.g., VinSa 172aI4; T vol 24 no. 1488: 1069c20 f. Because they kill, people hate
them like enemies (TSi 293c9 f.). Poisonous animals called "very wicked": SDhPu
56,20-23 (3.43).
232. SN V 476 nos. 120 and 123, '" AN I 37,3lf and 37,35-38,1; T vol. 3 no. 185: 474c13
f.: vo!. 13, 262a29. Also in Jainism we come a c r o s ~ the idea that animals, especially
carnivores, go to hell (whereas herbivores may go to heaven); d Dundas 1995 (see
fn. 343): 283.
233. Sc. killing one's mother or father, killing an arhat, splitting the sangha, or spilling
the blood of a Buddha; cf. AKBh 259,20 ff.
234. Vi 619b27 ff.; cf. AKBh260,4-9; Hob 316a35 ff.
235. E. Denis (ed.) and St. Collins (trans!.): "The Story of the Elder Maleyyadeva", in
Journal of the Pali Text Society, 18 (1993), p. 43,1 and 84.
ethereal human beings. 236 It is also an essential feature of pure spheres
(or 'paradises') in Mahayana Buddhism, like SukhavatI, that they lack
unfortunate forms of existence, hence also animals. 237 A controversial
point is whether there are animals in the heavenly regions-especially
such as serve the gods as vehicles or draw their chariots, like elephants
and horses, and beautiful birds. According to Sarvastivada dogmatics,
there are.
238
But according to the Theravadins, there are not. 239 One
argument adduced by the latter is that in this case there should also be
maggots, moths, mosquitoes, flies, snakes, scorpions, centipedes, etc.,
whose presence is not accepted by the opponents. This shows a some-
what different motive: the wide-spread aversion of people to animals
which, if not dangerous or bothersome, are at least felt to be repulsive,
especially the aversion to many invertebrate animals and reptiles. Such
animals appeared incompatible with the heavenly regions, and accord-
ing to another source they do not exist in a privileged region of the
earth either, viz. on the continent Uttarakuru, where animals (like ele-
phants, horses and birds) do exist, but none without feet or with many
(i.e. more than four) feet. 240 As against this, repulsive and blood-thirsty
animals do fit in with the sinister ambience of the hells. According to
somewhat later texts, in some hell regions there are fierce dogs which
tear out the backbones of evil-doers and eat them, or crows with iron
beaks which pullout their eyes, or maggots which perforate their bod-
ies and even split their bones, or eat away their intestines.
241
However,
236. DN III 84,31-85,3 and 85,8 f. K. Meisig, Das Sutra von den vier Standen, Harrasso-
witz, Wiesbaden, 1988, pp. 104-107; for an almost complete list of parallel materi-
als see Okano 1998: 193 f.
237. Cf. L. Schmithausen, "Buddhismus und Natur", in R. Panikkar and W. Strolz (eds.):
Die des Menschen for eine bewohnbare Welt im Christentum
i
Hin-
duismus and Buddhismus, Freiburg etc., 1985, pp. 105-107. Cf. also 178,28-30
and 189,5-10 (cf. T vol. 8 no. 224 457c22 and 459b28-c7, the latter
passage referring, in this context, to animals devouring one another); 349,10 f.
Cf. also 29,12 f.: the bodhisattva vows that his merit shall free all living beings
from the suffering of existence in the hells, as an animal or in Yama's world (i.e.
among pretas).
238. Vi 867a5-8; similarly Virrzsatika Vijiiaptimatratasiddhi (ed. S. Levi) vs. 5a with Vrtti
(p. 4,27 f.). For further material see H8b 311 f.
239. Kathiivatthu XX.4.
240. Vi 867a3-5; cf. H8b 311a55 if.
241. fa V 268,15-18 (read sabala with Th. Oberlies: PaZi, Berlin, New York, 2001, p. 13
n. 3); 269,5 f.; 270,9 f.; MVu 11,11 f.; LoPra(T) 106b2-4; 107a2 f. and 5 f. (fal-
later on such torturing, committed, so to speak, in the,service of the law
of karma, may have come to be felt problematic from an ethical point
of view. 242 At any rate, according to one opinion, these hell animals are
not real animals but rather phantoms produced by the bad karma of the
victims, 243
2.2.2. Is it worse to kill a human than to kill an animal?
As has already been emphasized, the negative evaluation of exist-
ence as an animal has to be distinguished from the attitude towards and
treatment of individual animals as sentient beings, which require respect
and compassion. Still, the low position of animals in the hierarchy of
beings is not without influence upon the comparative weight of a ben-
efit bestowed on, or a damage inflicted upon, an animal on the one hand
and a human being on the other. Starting from the contrasting evalua-
tion of both forms of existence as described before, one would expect
that from the point of view of (at least this strand of) Buddhism benefit-
ing a human being is in any case much more meritorious than benefiting
an animal, and injuring or killing a human much worse than injuring or
killing an animal. An investigation of the sources reveals that the situ-
ation is more complex.
At first glance, it may appear that the intuitively anticipated answer
is the right one, after all. For in the Piitimokkhasutta, the code of monas-
tic discipline, a gradation of gravity is unambiguously expressed: Kill-
ing a human figures in the most serious category of offences, namely
cons instead of crows); LoPra(Ch) 210b20-22; c4 f.; 21lc28-212a4; 212a17-20
(LoPan 104,10-12; 109,3-7 and 17-19 [including snakes]; transL 97; 100 f.); Ybhil
85,12 f. and 17-19; Vi 866c24-27 (mentioning also centipedes; cf. Hob 311a); AKBh
163,23 f. and 164,2-5; S i k ~ 69 f.; SDhSmr 27c5 ff.; 35c21 ff. LoPra(T) 98a2 f. also
mentions elephants who trample the evil-doers to death.
242. Cf. the discussion concerning the hell-guardians at Vi 866b12-29, Vi2 48a5-21,
AKBh 164,12 ff. and Kathilvatthu XX.3; cf. Okano 1998: 23. See also Vil'flsatika (see
fn. 238) vs. 5-7 with Vrtti (p. 4,28-5,15), where the reason why there are not real
hell guardians and animals in hell is that they do not experience torture. Cf. Soda
Mori, "The Vijfianavadin View as Depicted in the Pali Commentaries with Spe-
cial Reference to the Nirayapala-katha", in P. Kieffer-Piilz, J.-u. Hartmann (eds.),
Bauddhavidyasudhakara (see fn. 132), pp. 453-464; id., Mahayana Buddhism in Sri
Lanka, ARM Corporation, Nagoya, 1999: 43-55.
243. SDhSmr 105a2-14 '" SDhSmr(T) vol. vol. 'u: 1bl-2a4 (phantom animals to be dis-
tinguished from real animals in hell which suffer themselves; cf. Hob 311 b26---31).
-ATTITUDES TOWARDS ANIMALS IN INDIAN BUDDHISM 91
those which entail definitive, irreversible expulsion from the Order
(piiriijika) , 244 whereas killing an animal is listed in the third category
only, piicittiya; i.e. offences which merely require some kind of atone-
ment. 245 Killing an animal thus belongs to the same category as, e.g.,
splashing water when bathing, or bathing more than once in a fortnight,
or expressly asking for fine foods. 246 Hence, killing a human is regarded
as much more serious than killing an animal.
But we should be careful not to jump to conclusions. The Piitimok-
khasutta is not primarily concerned with an ethical evaluation of actions
but rather with their significance for the harmony within the Order and,
above all, for the reputation of the Order in society. From this point
of view; it would indeed be disastrous if monks killed human beings,
be these members of the Order or outsiders. Murder would bring the
Order into conflict not only with society but also with secular law. Even
an event like the one adduced by the canonical commentary accord-
ing to which some monks out of disgust for their bodies asked another
monk to kill them 247 was bound to throw a very unfavourable light on
the Order.
As against this, killing an animal would have violated secular law and
interests only if the animal was claimed by some member of the society
as his or her property. In this case, however, the case would probably
have fallen under the second piiriijika, namely theft. 248 In declaring the
killing of an animal to be merely a piicittiya offence the Piitimokkhasutta
most probably envisaged the killing of unclaimed animals, especially
dangerous, troublesome or disliked animals. The commentary speaks
of crows (disliked!), but still more probable, in the context of a monk's
life, would be snakes, scorpions, and centipedes, or flies, mosquitoes,
ants. Secular society was hardly upset by the act of killing these animals
as such, but rather regarded such an act as unfit for an ascetic who was
expected to desist from any act of killing. This would explain why such
244. Yin III 71 and 73 (Pilriljika 3).
245. Yin IV 124 (Pilcittiya 61).
246. Yin IV 112 (Pile. 53), 117-119 (Pile. 57), and 88 (Pile. 39), respectively.
247. Yin III 68 f.
248. Cf., however, VinMii-248b15-22, declaring only intentional purloining of a domes-
tic animal to be ptirajika, not the killing (yet also the purloining or eating of the
meat). But cf. also 248a23-b1: destroying herbs or trees with the intention to steal
is stated to be ptirtijika.
an act is merely classified as a minor offence, alonK with other viola-
tions of ascetic decorum, But it does not necessarily mean that killing
an animal was considered a minor offence also from an ethical, or kar-
mic, point of view.
That the criterium applied by the Vinaya to evaluate an action is not
its ethical gravity but its social impact becomes .clear when one has a
look at two other piiriijika offences in relation with animals, namely sex-
ual intercourse and theft. Sexual intercourse with a female animal leads
to expulsion from the Order just like sexual intercourse with a human
female,249 As against this, appropriating the property of an animal, i.e,
the quarry left by a tiger or any other beast of prey, is no offence at all, or
only a slight one, 250 It is obvious that monks having sexual intercourse
with female animals would have been an extremely shocking experience
for secular society and would have detracted from the reputation of the
Order considerably. Appropriating the quarry left by a predatory animal,
on the other hand, did not disturb the harmony within the Order nor vio-
late the interests of secular society. In secular society, "animals do not
have property", 251 Actually, eating the left-overs of the quarry of beasts
of prey was considered an adequate part of the diet of at least some
types of ascetics, 252 The ethical issue of the animal's claim to property
or at least food is of no concern for the evaluation of the action from the
point of view of the Vinaya, It is only in the post-canonical Theravada
subcommentary that an ethical and/or spiritual aspect is taken into con-
sideration, the monks being asked to at least desist from chasing the
predatory animal away from its quarry out of compasslon--or, alterna-
tively, because it may be dangerous, 253
The evidence of the Piitimokkhasutta should thus not unreflectedly
be taken to prove that there is a big difference between killing a human
and killing an animal from the ethical point of view, and that abstention
from killing an animal is more or less a mere matter of ascetic decorum,
For lay followers, too, are also expected to abstain from killing animals
249, Vin III 21 f, and 34,
250. Vin III 58,31-38; VinMii 468b27-c5; VinMf7a16. Cf. Wez1er 1978: 39 f.; McDer-
mott 1989: 276; BudNat 47.1.
251. VinMii468c4.
252. Wezler 1978 (see fn. 250): 94-108.
253. Vin-a 379 f. Cf. BudNat 47.1.
(see p. 49-51). Actually, the subcommentary indicates that killing an
animal is, just like killing a human, laka-vajja,254 which would seem to
mean something like "a fault even in ordinary life", or "something to be
avoided by everybody".
Still, there is evidence in the Suttapitaka that killing a human is, also
from an ethical point of view, worse than killing an ariimal. E.g., in the
"Sermon of the Fisherman" (MacchabandhasuttaJ255 the Buddha states
that a fisherman who kills and sells fish does not become wealthy by
this occupation, and the reason for this is that he looks upon the fish to
be killed with an evil mind (piipakena manasanupekkhati), i.e., probably,
with the resolve to kill them. The same holds good for the
tives of other occupations based on killing animals, like the cow -, sheep-
or pig-butcher, the fowler or the hunter. The sermon then continues:
How much less [will a person (perhaps an executioner?) become
wealthy], if he looks upon a human being to be killed, brought near for
the sake of being killed, with an evil mind! 256
And the text concludes (quote):
This,o monks, will, of course, lead him into calamity and suffering for
a long time; after the collapse of the body, after dying, he goes to a bad
state, to an evil existence, to downfall, to hell. 257
To be sure, the concluding sentence may have been added merely
in order to underscore the undesired effect of killing a human being by
additionally pointing out its evil karmic result in the afterlife, and it need
not necessarily imply that the persons engaged in habitual slaughter of
animals would not go to an evil existence after death. Even so, by using
the phrase "how much less ... " the text makes unmistakably clear that
killing a human is considered worse than killing animals.
Likewise, in the liitakamiilii the provocative question of a canni-
bal king, namely, why killing people for the sake of food is consid-
ered wrong while hunting game is not, is answered by the Bodhisattva
254. Vin-a 865. That killing or torturing an animal is a serious misdeed from a moral
or karmic point of view although in monastic discipline it is only listed among the
minor transgressions (pacittiya) is explicitly stated at MPPU 648b5.
255. AN no. 6.18 (III 301-303). No Chinese parallel is known to us.
256.ANIII 303,18-20.
257. AN III 303,20-22.
with the argument that although killing game is not right either, hunt-
ing humans and eating their flesh is definitely still more reprehensible
because humans are a higher form of existence and not to be eaten. 258
One should not, however, lose sight of the fact that in this p a s s a g ~ the
reference to the pre-eminence of humans over animals is situated in the
specific context of cannibalism, which is generally abhorred in civilized
societies even more than murder.
But what about the above-mentioned army leader (senapati) STha
who is charged with having killed a big animal in order to entertain the
Buddha with meat but declares that not even for the sake of saving his
own life would he intentionally deprive a living being of its life?259 Or
the officer who uses a strainer for his drinking water in order to avoid
killing any animalcules but protests against the imputation that he might
not be ready to fight and kill enemies?260 Don't they consider killing an
animal worse than killing a human? Once again one must be careful. The
crucial pomt is signalized by the answer of the officer that in contrast to
the enemies, the animalcules in the water have not done anything wrong
against the ruler whom he owes loyalty. The reason why he is ready
to kill humans but not the tiny animals in the water has nothing to do
with a comparative evaluation of human life and animal life but is the
result of a conflict of norms: As a Buddhist, he should not kill any liv-
ing being, but as a warrior, his duty is to fight and hence to kill enemies.
Thus, these two cases cannot be adduced as counter-evidence against
the general evaluation, in Buddhism, that killing a human is worse than
killing an aninial.
That a human being is considered more valuable than an animal
is also confirmed by the hierarchy of the recipients of a gift in the
Dakkhi1J.avibhmigasutta.261 There we read that the reward for a gift to
an animal is a hundred times as much as the gift, but the reward for a gift
to an ordinary human being, albeit of bad morality, is a thousand times as
much as the gift, and that of a gift to an ordinary human being of moral
behaviour a hundred thousand times as much. The reward increases
further if the person who receives the gift has higher spiritUal qualities,
258. 1m ch. 31.50-51 (Khoroche 1989: 231).
259. See p. 63 with fn. 90.
260. See p. 63-64 with fn. 91.
261. MNID 255", Tvo!. 1 no. 26: 722b20-27; AKBh 270,5 f. and 11.
culminating in the gift to a saint (arhat) or even to the Buddha. Thus,
there is a clear hierarchy of recipients, which is based on their moral
and spiritual status.
That this hierarchy applies also in the context of killing is confirmed
by the Theravada commentarial tradition. The rule is: the more virtuous
the person who is killed, the more blameworthy the killing. 262 Again, ani-
mals are, as a matter of principle, considered less valuable than humans;
for whereas humans are stated to be (by their very nature) endowed
with virtues (gUlJ-avat) , animals are devoid of them (gulJa-virahitaj263
and hence inferior. The reason is no doubt that humans, in contrast to
animals, are capable of, and hence have a unique chance for, attaining
liberation. Therefore, killing a human is always worse than killing an
animal. This is expressly confirmed by a Chinese source:
To kill a man is grave, to kill animals is [ comparatively] light; for [only]
man is capable of passing through the path [to awakening] in these two
Vehicles, the great and the small one. 264
However, in later sources, the unconditional superiority of humans
over animals is sometimes questioned.
265
In the *Tattvasiddhi of Hari-
varman, the DakkhilJ-avibhmigasutta is stated to be non-definitive, i.e.,
to require interpretation, just because of the sentence that a gift to a
human of bad morality yields a higher reward than a gift to an animal.
According to the *Tattvasiddhi, the karmic reward gained by a gift to a
bird like a partridge (*kapifijala) is superior to the reward gained by a
gift to a non-Buddhist ascetic even if he possesses the five supernormal
faculties (abhijfia). 266 And in the Vijfianakaya, a canonical Abhidharma
text of the Sarvastivada school, the question is raised whether it is worse
(*savadyatara) to kill an ant or a person who has cut off all roots of what
is wholesome (samucchinna-kusalamala), i.e., a person who has perpe-
262.DN-a 169,27 f. "MN-a 1198,17 f. As is well known, killing a saint (arhat) is enu-
merated among the five most heinous misdeeds, which bring immediate retribution
in hell (iinantarya).
263. DN-a I 69,24 and 27", MN-a 1198,14 and 17.
264. Tvol. 40 no. 1813: 611all f.
265. At MPPU 681c20-682al, emptiness is used to efface the distinction between the
Buddha and an animal as receivers of gifts in order to prevent the bodhisattva from
despising and neglecting the animal.
266. TSi 291c16-19.
trated one of the five anantaryas and who, clinging to ,the wrong view of
denying karma and rebirth, and moral obligations, has become entirely
unscrupulous. 267
The same problem---":"'i.e. whether it is worse to kill such a. person or
to kill an ant-is also raised in a postcanonical Abhidharma treatise of
the same school, the V i b h i i ~ a . The discussion is found in two of the three
Chinese versions we have of this text,268 but only the latest of these men-
tions the opinion that killing the person who has cut off the roots of what
is wholesome is the more serious offence. 269 The reason adduced is that
human existence is a favourable form of existence (sugati), but it is not
clear whether this refers, in the context of the argument, to the fact that
human existence offers more happiness than animal existence or to the
fact that human existence offers a unique opportunity for attaining lib-
eration. Actually, the person who has cut off all roots of what is whole-
some would seem to have forfeited this very opportunity.
It is precisely for this reason that according to another opinion kill-
ing the ant is the worse offence. 270 For, in contradistinction to the human
being who has cut off all roots o(what is wholesome, the ant is still in
possession of these roots (animals cannot cut off the roots of what is
wholesome, because they are not normally considered as capable of
committing anantaryas,271 and certainly do not have nihilistic wrong
views). Thus, the spiritual status of an ant is still superior to that of
a human being who has cut off all roots of what is wholesome, and
hence according to this opinion the ant ranks higher in the hierarchy of
beings.
267. VijfiK 588a21-23, quoted at AKTU Tu 278b7. The Chinese version speaks of "an
ant egg or an ant with a broken leg (or: broken legs)", but the Tibetan quotationhas
simply "ant(s)" (srog chags grog sbur dag). Vi (see next fn.) also has "ant egg", Vi2
"ant with broken leg(s)". For the concept of samucchinnakusalamula see Robert E.
Buswell, Jr.: "The Path to.Perdition: The Wholesome Roots and Their Eradication",
in Robert E. Buswell, Jr., and Robert M. Gimello (eds.): Paths to Liberation, Hono-
lulu: University of Hawaii Press 1992: 107-134.
268. Vi 184c1O-18; Vi2 139a18-25.
269. Vi 184c14-16.
270. AKTU Tu: 278b8 f.; VijfiK 588a23-26; Vi 184c 13-14; Vi2 139a20-22.
271. See p. 88 with fn. 233 and 234. The statement quoted in fn. 224, however, seems to
be at variance with this opinion.
According to an autochthonous Chinese source, only the killing of
an animal that has produced the resolve for Buddhahood (bodhicitta)
is worse than killing a human who has perverted views. 272 In this case,
solely this sort of exceptional animal is considered superior to a spiritu-
ally degenerated human being. But according to the position adduced by
the Sarvastivada sources any animal is superior to such a person.
The Sarvastivada sources mention, however, yet another position.
According to this position, the gravity of killing an ant and of killing a
human who has cut off all roots of what is wholesome is the same, pro-
vided that the intensity of the outburst of passion from which the act of
killing was nurtured is alike. 273 This would seem to imply that an ant and
a totally depraved human are equal in the hierarchy of beings, i.e. that
such a person has sunk not below but at least down to the level of the
lowest animals. Both ranking equal, gravity can only differ in accord-
ance with the vehemence of the subjective impulse of greed, hatred or
confusion from which the act of killing is motivated. In the Tattvasiddhi,
this impulse is even regarded as the predominant criterium of gravity:
When somebody kills an ant in a vehement outburst of passion, this is
more serious than kiliing a (unspecified!) human being (in a mild state
of mind, e.g. out of compassion, as a Chinese author referring to this
passage explains). 274
The V i b h a ~ a , however, keeps to the criterium of the hierarchy of
beings and accepts the view that killing the ant is worse than killing a
human being who has cut off all roots of what is wholesome. This text
thus ranges such a person even below the lowest of animals. Still, the
text makes a distinction: Killing an ant is worse from the point of view
of karma and its retribution, i.e., roughly speaking, in an ethical perspec-
tive. From the point of view of legal punishment, however, killing the
human who has cut off the roots of what is wholesome is worse; for a
person killing a human receives, in any case, the utmost punishment. 275
It is not clear whether this refers to secular law (punishment by the king)
272. Tvo!. 40 no. 1813: 611a14. Cf. also LoPra(Ch) 211b8: A person who kills a living
being that is a bodhisattva goes to the aVlci hell (not in LaPafi 107 [trans!. 99]).
273.AKTU tu 278b8; VijfiK 588a23; Vi 184cll-13; Vi2 139a19 f. Cf. the view of the
Ceylonese monk quoted on p. 56 (with fn. 41).
274. TSi 291all f; cf. Tvo!. 40 no. 1804: 49a12 f.
275. Vi 184c16-18; Vi2 139a22-25.
or rather (as we believe) to the law of monastic discipline, the Vinaya.
For according to the Vinaya killing a human being would in any case
entail expulsion from the Order, whereas killing an ant would merely
be a pacittiya offence.
The aforementioned discussion in the Abhidharma treatises looks
rather theoretical. In the Mahayanist M ahiiparinirvalJasatra, however, a
similar view is advocated in a decidedly practical context. The text starts
from a story about Brahmins who had denied the possibility of Buddha-
hood and disparaged the Mahayana sutras, and had for this reason been
killed by a pious king. This king was the Buddha in a former existence,
i.e. when he was still a bodhisattva.
276
But how could the Bodhisattva
kill those Brahmins, since a bodhisattva does not intentionally kill even
an ant, as the text hastens to add? 277
The answer in the text is that there are three degrees of killing: 278
The least grave form of killing is killing an animal, from ants onward. 279
Even this kind of killing is bad karma and thus entails evil rebirth,
because animals possess roots of what is wholesome, albeit faint ones.
The medium grave form of killing is killing a human, from ordinary per-
sons up to "non-returners" (aniigiimin), i.e. the stage preceding the state
of a saint (arhat). It, too, entails, of course, evil rebirth. The worst form
of killing is the killing comprised in the anantaryas, i.e. killing one's
mother or father, or killing an arhat, a pratyekabuddha or a bodhisattva.
It leads one into the lowest hell, avfci. However, the Brahmins killed
by the Bodhisattva were icchantikas, who for all practical purposes
can be equated with the person who has cut off all roots of what is
wholesome,280 and killing an icchantika does not fall under any of the
276. MPSMah 459a22 f. (Yamamoto 1974: 390).
277. MPSMah(Ch) 459c4 f. (Yamamoto 1974: 392); cf. 460a22 f. (Yamamoto 1974:
394).
278.MPSMah(Ch) 460b5 ff. A threefold gradation of killing is also found at SDhSmr
2b 17 -19 '" SDhSmr(T) vol. 'u: 90a6 f.: the most serious killing is killing an arhat,
etc., followed by killing a person who is on the path, and the least serious is killing
a bad person or an animal. This text thus does not seem to assign much importance
to a difference in gravity between killing a bad human and an animal.
279. Bodhisattva animals (see pp. 106-109; cf. also p. 97 with fn. 272) are, however,
expressly excluded from this category.
280. Cf. MPSMah(Ch) 562a9-12; b3-5 (Yamamoto 1975: 823 0. On icchantika and
the precise relationship of this term to the concept of samucchinnakusalamala see
-ATTITUDES TOWARDS ANIMALS IN INDIAN BUDDHISM 99
three kinds of killing,281 just because an icchantika has, in contradis-
tinction to animals, entirely cut off the roots of what is wholesome. 282
Therefore,
by killing an ant one still commits the misdeed of killing, but by killing
an icchantika one does not commit the misdeed of killing. 283
Just as by digging in the earth, mowing grass, cutting trees or dissecting
a corpse, or insulting or whipping it, one does not commit the misdeed
[of killing, etc.,] or earn its karmic result, thus by killing an icchantika
one does not commit a misdeed or earn its karmic result. 284
Thus, in the Mahaparinirva;l}asutra, killing persons who have cut off
all roots of what is wholesome is not only less grave than killing ani-
mals, even an ant, but is in fact no offence at all. At the same time, this
theoretical position is asserted in order to justify the actual killing of
such persons, who are equated with people hostile to the Mahayana, or
at least hostile to the group by which this text was authored and to their
tenets and practices.
The Mahayanist MahiiparinirvalJasutra was translated into Chinese
at the beginning of the fifth century AD. To be sure, the passages just
r e f e r r ~ d to belong to the portion for which no Sanskrit fragments have
yet been discovered, and for which no Tibetan translation made from
the Sanskrit exists. Even so, there is Ii striking similarity of its justifi-
cation of the killing of enemies of the (true) Buddhist doctrine with
that of the Ceylonese chronicle MahiivarJ1sa (end of the fifth century
AD). 285 According to this text, the qualms of King Dunhagamal).l, who
had waged war against the Tamils and killed their king, allegedly for
the sake of restoring Buddhism, were allayed by a group of eight saintly
Buswell 1992 (see fn. 267): 119 f. According to Seishi Karashima, "Who were the
ieehantikas?", in Annual Report of the International Institute for Advanced Buddhist
Studies at Soka University 18 (2007): 67-80, the meaning of iechantika in the later
strata of the MaMparinirvli(lasutra is "one who claims [to be an authority]", oppos-
ing the new ideas concerning Buddhahood proclaimed by the Mahliparinirvli(lasutra
(ibid. p. 78), i.e. [authoritative] persons who hold, and even enforce, views that are
(from the point of view of the MPSMah) wrong and utterly pernicious.
281. MPSMah(Ch) 460b16 (Yamamoto 1974: 395).
282. MPSMah(Ch) 562b5 (Yamamoto 1975: 824).
283. MPSMah(Ch) 562b6 f. (Yamamoto, lac. cit.).
284. MPSMah(Ch) 460b17-19 (Yamamoto 1974: 395).
285.0. von Hiniiber: A Handbook of Plili Literature, Berlin & New York, 1996, p. 91.
monks (arhats!) with the argument that most of the victims were "unbe-
lievers and men of evil life" , "not more to be esteemed than beasts". 286
Here too the basic hiearchy of gravity (killing a human worse than kill-
ing an animal) is invalidated in the case of "unbelievers and men of evil
life".
2.2.3. The "narrative strand" and the "hermitage strand":
even animals may behave morally
The rather negative evaluation of existence as an animal, and of ani-
mals as such, in what, for want of a better term, we have called the 'doc-
trinal strand' since this kind of evaluation is, or at least has become,
predominant in non-narrative, mostly didactIcal textual materials and
in later systematization, is, however, not the only one in the Buddhist
tradition. Especially in more popular, narrative, more indirectly didactic
literature like the Jiitakas and Avadiinas we often come across another
strand with a somewhat different, more positive picture of animals and
animal existence. These texts largely draw on pre- or non-Buddhist nar-
rative literature-fables, fairy-tales, etc.-, which they utilize in order to
illustrate wholesome and unwholesome, or at least prudent and impru-
dent, behaviour in an appealing form, the main addressees probably
being lay followers or just ordinary people. In fact, the influence of the
spirit of this literature (and its artistic illustrations) on the Buddhist pop-
ulation has been considerable.
In this genre of texts, animals are often used to represent humans,
and at any rate are conceived of, or at least depicted, as being, feeling
and acting basically like humans. Thus, just like humans, animals may
be clever, even wise, or foolish; good-natured, even compassionate, or
mischievous. 287 Occasionally, they are better than the humans, and may
give advice to them. And they are not portrayed as being hopelessly
unhappy but may enjoy their life, as long as man does not mistreat or
persecute them.
286. MahiiValJ1sa XXV:1lO: ... sesii pasusama matii. Our translation follows Geiger (The
MahiivalJ1sa, transl. into English, repr. London, 1964, p. 178). Cf. Sven Bretfeld:
"Zur Institutionalisierung des Buddhismus und der Suspendierung der ethischen
Norm der Gewaltlosigkeit in Sri Lanka" in: Zeitschrijt fUr Religionswissenschaft 11
(2003): 149-165, ~ s p . 164.
287. Cf. Chapple 1997: 135-137.
It is true that certain features and modes of behaviour -noble as well
as wicked-tend to be characteristic of certain species, some having a
positive, others a negative, yet others an ambivalent image. 288 Still, there
is sufficient scope for individual features and decisions. 289 E.g., a cer-
tain individual may abandon the natural, 'evil' behaviour of the respec-
tive species, as when a poisonous snake decides not to bite,290 or when
a crane resolves to eat fish only when it finds them already dead. 291
Animals are even capable of heroic self-sacrifice. One of the most well-
known examples is the hare in the Sasa-jiitaka who offers his body to
an ascetic as a meal since he has nothing else to give him (and who even
shakes his body thrice when he is about to jump into the fire in order
to make sure that none of the tiny animals inhabiting his fur might be
burnt to death). 292 The wise, good and heroic animals are mostly identi-
fied with the Bodhisattva. By this identification, the unusual behaviour
of those animals became both explicable and irrefutable even from a
doctrinal point of view, albeit as a rare exception.
Closely akin to the "narrative strand" just characterIzed are ideas
about the relation of wild animals to the hermit, i.e. to ascetics, monks or
bodhisattvas who have retired into the wilderness. As mentioned above
(p. 62 with fn. 80), already in the canonical texts we come across the
idea that a monk can protect himself from being attacked by wild or dan-
gerous animals by cultivating and irradiating loving-kindness (mettii,
maitrt). According to later sources, animals that are normally shy or
dangerous may flock around the hermitage, become tame and even turn
into servants or pupils of the hermit. 293 The loving-kindness irradiated
288. Cf. Marinova 1993: 75 ff.; Nakamura 1988: 31 ff.; Deleanu 2000: 105-116 (lion
versus jackal).
289. E.g. fa No. 357 (a wicked elephant and a good-natured one).
290. fa I 370 f.
291. fa I 206-208; cf. Harvey 2000: 162.
292. fa No. 316. Another example: the monkeys infa No. 222 who give their life for
their old mother. J. L. Panglung, Die ErziihlstoiJe des Miilasarvlistivlida-Vinaya
analysiert aUf Grund der tibetischen Ubersetzung, The Reiyukai Library, Tokyo,
1981: 47 (nliga/snake letting its flesh be eaten by hungry people); 94 f. (tortoise
allowing insects to eat its body); 201 (antelope sacrificing its life in order to save
the rest of the flock; see also Lamotte 1970: 1651 f.).
293. E.g., fa VI 29,27; BoBh 52,23 ff.; H. Hoffmann, Mi-Ia ras-pa: Sieben Legenden,'
Mtinchen-Planegg, 1950, pp. 88 ff.; T vol. 82: 130c20 ff. (Chinese hermit is served
by an elephant and a tiger).
by the hermit passes over to the animals so as to rel:!-der them peace-
ful, even among one another, to the extent that species like the mon-
goose 3..i1.d snake abandon their natural enmity and become friends. 294
The hermitage is, thus, conceived of as a place of peace with and within
nature.
In this connection, one may also mention the fact that in the sculp-
tures at Sanchi and Bharhut the Buddha (symbolized by the bodhi tree)
is represented as being attended by wild animals like elephants, lions,
buffalo, deer. 295 And in the Mahayana MahilparinirvalJasutra, the audi-
ence assembling around the Buddha who is about to pass away inCludes
all kinds of animals: elephants, lions, buffalo, cows, sheep, various spe-
cies of birds, even bees. 296 In the MahameghasCltra, too, various species
of animals join the audience of the Buddha, including such as are nor-
mally fierce and dangerous, like poisonous snakes, poisonous insects,
beasts of prey and "wicked" birds, and these are expressly stated to look
upon one another with loving kindness, just like mother and child, and
assume the five commitments. 297
Descriptions of a hermitage tend to include an aesthetic component,
pointing out as they often do the idyllic beauty of the place.
298
In this
context, we also find a positive evaluation of the variety of species, of
bio-diversity, of both plants and animals. 299 Even predatory animals may
294. E.g. fa VI 73,10-13; 520,27 f.; cf. II 53,4 ff. But Zhabs-dkar, failing to persuade an
eagle to abandon its hunting instinct, throws stones at it with a sling in order to pro-
tect young waterbirds (Ricard 1994: 139).
295. Morihiro Oki & ShOji Ito, Genshi Bukkyo Bijutsu Zuten. Ancient Buddhist Sites of
Sanchi & Bharhut, Tokyo, 1991, plates no. 68, 70, 143,202,227.
296. MPSMah 369a12-26 and b2-4 (Yamamoto 1973: 17 f.) "MPSMah(T) 13bl-14a2
(no bees, but cf. 12b5) " T 12 no. 376: 855c8-19; cf. G. M. Bongard-Levin, New
Sanskrit Fragments of the Mahayana The International
Institute for Buddhist Studies, Tokyo, 1986, pp. 6 and 12. Cf. Page 1999: 77-79. The
scene is frequently represented in Japanese paintings of the Parinirvfu:!a (cf., e.g.,
Jorinde Ebert, Steiner, Stuttgart, 1985, pictures 86 and 87). In this text,
the inclusion of animals into the assembly at the Buddha's may perhaps
also symbolize the idea that they, too, possess Buddha-nature and hence the pre-
condition for future awakening (see p. 110).
297. Tvo!. 12 no. 387 (Mahameghasutra): 1080c2-13 and 21-26; cf. Peking Kanjur, mDo
dzu: 130b7-131b8 and 132a6-b6 (not mentioning loving-kindness but at least stat-
ing that the poisonous animals stopped being poisonous).
298. E.g., fa V 405 f.; 416; 419 f.; VI 496 f.; 529 f.; 533 ff.
299. Cf. Schmithausen 1997a: 31 with ns. 219-220.
be included, being, in this context, vievved not as blood-thirsty monsters
but in their majestic beauty. 300 On the other hand, animals with unpleas-
ant or sinister voices are occasionally stated to keep away from the
hermitage.
301
On the whole, in this picture of the hermitage the repul-
sive and cruel aspects of animal life-like violent death or rotting car-
casses-are either ignored or presupposed to be annulled by the hermit's
intensive irradiation of loving-kindness.
As stated above, in view of the fact that in the Jiitakas animals
with extraordinary behaviour were identified with the Bodhisattva,
even the 'doctrinal strand' could not deny that animals, too, are, albeit
exceptionally, 302 capable of moral or spiritual virtues. Occasionally, they
are accepted to behave in a moral manner on a broader scale. E.g., in
the Sarp.matIya version of the Lokaprajfiapti we read that during the
time before the dissolution of the lower world spheres predatory ani-
mals like lions, tigers, wolves, jackals, panthers and badgers will all
develop a sentiment of loving-kindness and stop devouring other ani-
mals. They will eat grass and drink water, and eat meat only if they hap-
pen to come across an animal that has died naturally. They will rather
starve to death than kill others in order to save themselves. 303 Similarly,
the flesh-eating animals of the water like crocodiles or (big) tortoises
and fish will become peaceful vegetarians.
304
Freed from hatred and
harmful thoughts, they will all be reborn as humans. 305
We have attempted to show above that with regard to the evaluation
of animals as compared to humans, and of animal existence as com-
pared to human existence, the Buddhist tradition is not uniform, having
at least two clearly divergent conceptions-a fairly negative one and a
more positive one-existing side by side, sometimes even overlapping.
We should not, however, lose sight of the fact that both conceptions are
not specifically Buddhist. 306 Neither strand aims, primarily, at a Buddhist
300. E.g., fa V 416,20; VI 497,12 f.; 537,19 and 30.
301. Or a deity drives them away: fa I 315,6-8; VI 73,3 f.; 520;7 f.
302. See pp. 107-108 with fn. 323.
303. LoPra(Ch) 222b26-29. Abbreviated beyond recognition in LoPan (194,13-15;
transl. 169 with n. 16).
304. LoPra(Ch) 222b 19-22.
305. LoPra(Ch) 222b22-24 and b29-c2.
306. As for the negative evaluation of animal existence, cf., e.g., W. Halbfass, Tradition
and Reflection, Albany, 1991, pp. 269 if. (Veda and Hinduism); Medhatithi ad Manu
theory of the animal. Their main concern is with ql1ite different issues.
A text like the "Sermon on the Foolish and the Wise" is concerned with
unwholesome and wholesome actions, and by describing their effect in
some detail tries to strongly dissuade people (more precisely: lay peo-
ple) from perpetrating the unwholesome actions and to stimulate them to
practice the wholesome ones. For this didactic purpose, the text makes
use of, and even radicalizes, the conception of animals as miserable or
even wicked-probably current among the people of those days-, hold-
ing out to evil-doers a prospect of reiterated rebirth in such a miserable
state. Analogously, as was already indicated above, the Jiitakas merely
make use of popular stories, fables and fairy-tales for the sake of edi-
fying people and thus attracting them to Buddhism and its ideas and
institutions. And the ideas about animals around the hermit or hermit-
age may, to be sure, have some empiric background but are in the first
place an expression of the charisma of, or at least attributed to, recluses
and other saintly persons.
3, Animals in the context of soteriology
According to a canonical formula, the Buddha is the teacher of gods
and men,307 and similarly the promulgation of his teaching is stated to
be conducive to the welfare and happiness of gods and men. 308 Signifi-
cantly, animals are not mentioned in these statements. To be sure, the
sources occasionally report that the Buddha taught to an animal, as,
12.77 (animals unhappy); H. von Glasenapp, Der lainismus, Berlin, 1925, p. 188;
id.: Die Lehre vam Karman in der Philasaphie der lainas, Leipzig, 1915, p. 70 (only
man is capable of perfect self-control and hence in a position to attain liberation);
cf. also W. Schubring, Die Lehre der lainas, Berlin, Leipzig, 1935, p. 130. As for
the conception of animals in the li'itakas, it is largely inherent in the sources from
which they draw. As for the lovely surroundings of the hermitage and the tame-
ness of animals around the hermit, this is a tapas in Hindu sources as well; cf., e.g.,
Mahtibhtirata (crit. ed.) 1.64; 3.155.37 if.; RiimiiyalJa (crit. ed.) 3.69.2 if.; Monika
Shee, Tapas and tapasvin in den erziihlenden Partien des Mahabharata, Reinbek,
1986, pp. 306 if.; Yogasutra 2.35 with Sankara's VivaralJa; A. Wezler, "A note on the
class of ascetics called unmajjaka", in Bulletin d'etudes indiennes, 9 (1991), p. 225;
Jan E. M. Houben, "To Kill or not to Kill", in Houben & van Kooij 1999: 141.
307. E.g., DNI 62; MNII 38; SNIII 85; ANI 22.
308.E.g., Vin I 21; DNII 45; 103 f.; SNI 105; ANI 19.
e.g., the elephant Nalagiri who had been stirred up against him. 309 The
primary purpose of such reports, however, is hardly to make a soteri-
ological statement but rather to underscore the charisma and superior-
ity of the Buddha,310 the more so since the main point of the story is
the taming of the furious elephant by means of irradiating loving-kind-
ness. Likewise, reference to gods being granted instruction by the Bud-
dha is mainly for the sake of underlining the latter's superiority. The
true recipients of the Buddha's teaching are doubtless humans, the only
beings capable of actually attaining liberating insight. Still, one may
ask whether (and, if yes, how) animals may attain liberation or at least
a better rebirth. The question may sound purely theoretical and hence
futile (and may hence not have been taken up in the earliest period). But
animals are, after all, sentient beings, subject to suffering and hence in
need of liberation.
311
At any rate, as soon as animals were systemati-
cally integrated into the theory of rebirth (see p. 79-80) in terms of being
explicitly regarded as a form of existence in which human beings might
be reborn, it became inevitable that the question would be posed regard-
ing the chances animals have to attain liberation or, at least, to ascend,
or re-ascend, to higher forms of existence, by being reborn as a human
or among heavenly beings. The answer was for the most part that as
animals they are not capable of attaining liberation, but that they might
attain it if they are reborn as humans. As for the chances for a rebirth of
animals as humans, however, the two strands of the evaluation of ani-
mal existence lead to somewhat different consequences, or at least to a
considerable difference in emphasis.
In the 'doctrinal strand', the presuppositions are not very favour-
able for the soteriological perspectives of animals. In the "Sermon of
the Foolish and the Wise" (BalapalJrJitasutta), the main point was to
309. Yin II 194-196; Ja V 333 ff.; cf. T Bd. 22, 19b24 ff.; Bd. 23, 262all ff.; SBhV II
187-189. The remaining cases adduced in Lamotte 1949 (1) 133, n. 1, with refer-
ence to VisM VIIA7 concern (powerful and dangerous) niigas, hence mythical ani-
mals (s. fn. 245). For some examples of wild animals being tamed by the Buddha
from the Avadiinasataka see Jaini 1987, 172 f.
310. This may also be a motive in the case of the sculptures mentioned in fn. 293.
311. Yasomitra (AKVy 541,6) explicitly states that beings in the unfortunate states of
existence, hence also animals, though lacking the faculty of discriminative insight
(prajiiii) required for actually attaining liberation, are still capable of nirveda, i.e.
may become disgusted with suffering, i.e., long for liberation.
warn people against engaging in unwholesome actions by pointing out
the danger of being reborn either in hell or as an animal, depicted as an
utterly miserable form of existence. In this connection, emphasis is also
laid on the extreme difficulty of re-emerging from animal existence:
Imagine a yoke drifting about somewhere in the ocean, and a one-eyed
tortoise emerging from the sea only once in a hundred years: it is highly
improbable that the tortoise happens to put its neck through the drifting
yoke, but it is even less probable that an animal is reborn as a human. 312
This illustration almost suggests that once one has sunk into animal
existence one is almost predestined to remain stuck there. Still, even this
gloomy perspective is depicted with the intention to warn the audience
emphatically against laxity and urge them to desist from unwholesome
actions. The statement should not be taken as the expression of an inter-
est in the theoretical question of the chance animals have to ascend to
higher forms of existence. Still less is the text interested in the question
of whether animals can attain final liberation or at least get nearer to it.
Yet the influence of this text on the dogmatic position of mainstream
Buddhism would seem to have been by no means negligible. Rebirth as
an animal comes to be classified as one of the unfavourable conditions
that prevent one from following the teaching of a Buddha and attaining
liberation. 313 And ascent from animal existence to human or heavenly
existence continues to be regarded as rare and difficult. 314
In the "narrative strand" and the "hermitage strand", the conditions
for a soteriological perspective of animals are clearly better. To be sure,
the Jatakas (in which this strand is most palpable) are not expressly
interested in the theoretical question of animal soteriology either. As
pointed out before, their primary concern is with illustrating, on the
basis of narratives in which the protagonists are often animals, good and
bad, or prudent and imprudent, behaviour. The important point, with
regard to animal soteriology, is that the exemplary, ideal
including animals, are identified with the Bodhisattva. This implies that
312. MN III 169,9-22 '" T vol. 1: 761b21 ff. '" SN V 455,23-456,7; ct. also SN V 476
nos. 121 and 124, '" AN I 37,31-33 and 37,35-38,2. For Hindu and Jaina parallels
ct. Minoru Note on the Hindu Concept of Man", in Journal of the Faculty
oj Letters, The University ojTokyo, Aesthetics, 11 (1986), pp. 45 ff.
313. AN IV 226; DN III 264.
314. SN V 476, nos. 120 and 123, '" AN I 37,30f. and 34f. Cf. also MVu I 27,8 f.
the animals in these roles could not be taken by the Buddhist tradition
as a mere litt;;rary device, but had to be taken seriously as precedents
demonstrating that an exemplary moral or religious behaviour is possi-
ble also for animals, even in cases where the animal was not identified
with the Bodhisattva. 315 The tradition also had to acknowledge both that
the Bodhisattva, even as an animal, is capable of granting instruction
to other animals (and to humans as well),316 and that at least some of
these animals are amenable to this instruction.
317
Thus, at least in prin-
ciple, animals can grasp ethical norms, fulfill them and even teach them
to others. They are, moreover, capable of loving-kindness, compassion
and forgiveness, 318 especially under the influence of spiritually advanced
humans (see p. 101-102),319 but also independently, as, e.g., in the period
preceding the dissolution of the world (see p. 103). Even if the position
is held that they cannot, as long as they are animals, attain liberating
insight,320 they are nevertheless capable of accumulating merit through
wholesome behaviour, including even self-sacrifice. Thereby, they will
be reborn in a better form of existence where the attainment of liberat-
ing i11Sight is possible. 321 The animals identified with the Bodhisattva are
even on the way to Buddhahood.
322
To be sure, the outstanding, heroic
behaviour of certain animals, especially Bodhisattva animals, as depicted
in the Jiitakas appears as something exceptional, and could easily be
315. Cp., e.g., Ja no. 37, 206 and 316.
316. E.g., Ja no. 12 and 482. MPPU715a6 ff. states that receiving advice from an animal
may be especially impressive for a human.
317. E.g., Ja no. 37 and 316.
3I8.E.g., Ja I 151,21 ff.; IV 256,15 ff.; 261,1 ff.; 262,2; Jm 30,13, 18 and 25; 173.25;
180,17; 209,17; Tvo1.13, 167b26 ff. (cf. Hob 316b22 ff.).
319. Similarly, MN-a I 228 f. asserts that under the influence of suitable human beings
animals may even devote themselves to the exercise of mindfulness (satiparrhana),
adducing as an example a parrot who was taught to memorize the words "bone,
bone" and is reported to have made appropriate use of this when carried off by a
predatory bird.
320. Cf. Ja V 336,27 f.
321. E.g. Ja I 219,15-17; V 53,1; Jm 35,28; SBhVII 189,25 f., 190,12 ff. and 192,13 ff. (the
elephant DhanapiiJaka (= Nalagiri) who was tamed by the Buddha is, after death,
reborn in heaven and, upon further instruction, attains liberating insight); similarly
Gilgit Manuscripts IILl, ed. N. Dutt, Srinagar 1947: 18,5-8. Cf. also Iaini 1987:
172 f.
322. In later texts like the Jiitaka prose or Jm they are so even deliberately; cf., e.g., Ja V
53,1-4; Jm 212,13-20 (30.22).
viewed as contrary to the normal nature of animals, which could be
taken as evil and foolish along the lines of the 'doctrinal strand' . 323 From
this point of view, the incompatibility of animal nature with an individual
animal's aspiration to moral behaviour or liberation came to be regarded
as being, at least in certain cases, resolvable only by the animal's suicide,
approved in this case on account of its irreproachable motivation and its
opening the way to a more suitable form of existence. 324
It is not surprising that the Bodhisattva's animal existences have
received systematical treatment from the side of Mahayana authors,
for whom the (so to speak 'historical') Bodhisattva (of the Jiitakas)
had become an ideal which one should imitate by likewise becoming
a bodhisattva. To be sure, the idea that animals are most unhappy is by
no means alien to Mahayana sources. It is not only presupposed in the
idea that in pure Buddha-fields like SukhavatI there are no animals (see
p. 89), at least no real animals. It is visible also when an early Mahayana
text states that at least advanced bodhisattvas are no longer reborn in
evil forms of existence, including animals,325 or, as another text puts
it, at least not among mean or tiny animals 326 But
on the other hand, a bodhisattva has taken the vow to lead as many liv-
ing beings as possible to liberation, and he
327
does not, in this connec-
tion, only think of humans but embraces all classes of sentient beings,
animals being expressly included,328 even though it is occasionally
stressed in Mahayana texts that animals are more difficult to 'convert'
than humans and gods.
329
Still, a bodhisattva will try to 'convert' ani-
323. Cf., e.g., Jm 30,14 and 17 if. (Khoroche 1989, p. 32); Hob 317a34 if.
324. This point was brought to our attention by Martin Delhey. Cf. Delhey 2006: 44 f.
325. A,I't 211,4 (cf. Tvol. 8: 465a2).
326.MVu 1102,15 if., esp. 103,10. Actually, there seems to be no (at least no canonical)
Jiitaka in which the Bodhisattva is reborn as an insect or a similar tiny animal (in
T vol. 3 no. 152: 34b27 if., the Bodhisattva is actually a monk and only apparently
transforms himself into-or merely creates?-a bee in order to prevent a fellow
monk from falling asleep). At Bodhicaryiivatiira 7.18, however, it is expressly stated
that there were even mosquitoes, flies and worms (krmi) who on account of their
zeal finally attained Buddhahood (and hence may be called bodhisattva animals).
327. The bodhisattva may, of course, also be a female, but the Indian texts consistently
use male forms.
328. E.g., BoBh 155,25: ii-suniim arthafTl kartukiima(b) ... vinayitukiima(b); FWCh
1009a27 f. (cf. Hob 318b37 if.).
329. Tvol. 13, 167b24 f. (Hob 317b28-30; cf. also a34 if.).
mals as well. He may go so far as to offer his flesh to animals, thereby
arousing in them a sentiment of loving-kindness (*maiM) which frees
them from their animal existence, thus opening up to them the way to
salvation. 330 A bodhisattva may even assume rebirth as an anhnal, even
a wild, ferocious animal,331 in order to alleviate the suffering of these
animals and, above all, in order to encourage them, by acting as a model
and through instruction, to wholesome behaviour and thus to lead them
towards a favourable rebirth and, finally, to liberation. 332 Whereas the
Theravadins take the previous existences of the Bodhisattva as an ani-
mal to have been an automatic consequence of his former karma, 333
Mahayana sources tend to understand them (as well as the animal exist-
ences of other bodhisattvas) as being assumed voluntarily, for the sake
of helping animals or people.
334
Or they may even be merely appar-
ent, the bodhisattva as an animal by means of an apparitional
body (nirmii1}akiiya) and thus remaining unaffected by the blemishes of
animal existence.
335
Of course, also the Buddhas, in Mahayana mostly
conceived of as entirely supramundane beings, can produce such appa-
41,6-18 (cf. MPPU 682a29-b7). Cf. also Silq 158,17 ff. (with no mention of
maitrf, the beneficial effect of eating the bodhisattva's meat being due to his former
earnest wish (prmJidhiina).
331. Tva!. 24 no. 1488: 1041c28 f(Shih 1994: 44).
332. Tva!' 13 no. 397: 167b19 ff., esp. 22 f. (cf. Hob 317b19 ff.); Lamotte 1970: 1711;
BoBh 155,25 f.; 247,20 ff.; MPSMah 380b26-29 '" MPSMah(T) 39b6 f. " T vo!. 12
no. 376: 864a17 f.; MPSMah 550b19-23 '" Tvol. 12 no. 375: 796a23-26 (Yamamoto
1973: 65; 1975: 773), with an enumeration of species: deer, bear, monkey, snake/
niiga, garueJa, pigeon, fish, tortoise, hare, elephant (v.I.: fox), ox, horse. A similar
enumeration is found the passage adduced in fn. 331.
333. Kathiivatthu XXIII.3.
334. BoBh 247,20 ff.; MPSMah 550b23 f. (Yamamoto 1975: 773). Some of the schools of
conservative or mainstream Buddhism, too, appear to have held this view: cf., e.g.,
the opponent at Kathiivatthu XXIII. 3, or the position ascribed to the Mahasanghikas
(A. Bareau, Les Sectes bouddhiques du Petit Vehicule, Saigon, 1955, pp. 61 f.; among
the motives enumerated in Bareau's source we find not only reduction of the suffer-
ing of living beings and encouraging them to wholesome thoughts or training one-
self in patience and compassion but also enhancement of one's own disgust with the
world). A nice example is the story of the Bodhisattva voluntarily assuming rebirth
as a fish and offering his flesh to people in order to heal them from a disease or feed
them in a period of famine: see Lamotte 1980: 2298-2300; Marniko Okada, in Jour-
nal of Kobe Womens University, vol. 6 (1992), pp. 67-81; cf also BoBh 247,6-9.
335. MPPU 715a6; Hob 317b31 ff.; KiirVyu 281,24 ff. (the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara
transforms himself into a bee in order to teach tiny creatures like worms).
110 LAMBERT SCHMITHAUSEN & lVIUDAGAMUWE MAITHRIMURTHI
ritional bodies. 336 According to certain texts, hearing or recollecting the
word or the name of a certain Buddha, or being touched by
the rays of light issuing from the Bodhisattva in the womb,337 will help
even animals, indeed insects, to free themselves from their evIl forms of
existence and to be reborn as humans, in heaven, or in a Pure Land. 338
And a somewhat later text with Tantric features states that even the mere
unintentional hearing of just this text has the effect, even in animals, that
they can no longer miss the path to Buddhahood.
339
Although the
mary purpose of such statements is probably to highlight the extraor-
dinary saving power of a Buddha or the unique efficacy of a text, they
nonetheless testify to the fact that animals were not considered to be
excluded from salvation.
The conviction that, in the long run, animals may, just like humans,
attain Buddhahood manifests itself most impressively in the idea, set
forth in some Mahayana sources, that within all sentient beings, includ-
ing animals,340 Buddhahood is present from the outset (sarve sattviis
tathiigatagarbhiif:t) in a hidden form or as a potentiality. This need not
imply that animals can actually attain Buddhahood in this very life,
while being animals. The hidden presence of Buddhahood in them
merely shows that in their case, too, there is not onJy the need but also
a basic qualification for liberation, even for its highest form, viz. Bud-
dhahood. But this basic qualification need not, in each form of exist-
ence, meet with equally favourable conditions of realization. Likewise,
it is true that the presence of Buddhahood in them confers on animals a
high dignity, just as on other sentient beings, and that this dignity should
336, Cf., e.g., BoBh 45,4 and 10-12.
337. TGS llC (Zimmermann 2002: 153 f. and 344 f.).
338. T 12, 301b14-20 (cf. Y. Kajiyama, Studies in Buddhist Philosophy, Kyoto, 1989, p.
6); KtirVyu 281,27 if.; Bhai,yajyagurusutra (ed. in MahSaSg pp. 165-173) 167,18 if.
Cf. also T vol. 15 no. 642: 633b16-18 (E. Lamotte, La Concentration de la Mar-
che hiroique, Bruxelles, 1965, pp. 151 f.): even carnivores will be reborn in heaven
thanks to the merit and the vow of the bodhisattvas.
339. Aparimittiyurjfltinasatra, ed. M. Walleser, Heidelberg, 1916, p. 24,9-11. Cf. also
Ricard 1994: 355 (a pig, pursued by a dog, happens to run round a stUpa, is for this
reason reborn as a human, and attains liberation).
340. RGV 1.119 f.; TGS 7B (Zimmermann 2002: 133 and 302 0.
be reflected in their being treated with due respect. 341 But this dignity
and respect accrues to the individual animal as a sentient being, not to
animals as animals, as a special form of existence. On the contrary, the
animal body merely hides and disguises the inner Buddha-nature, as
becomes evident through a simile, in which the Buddhahood present
even in animals is compared with a precious statue wrapped up in a
putrid piece of cloth. 342
The view on animals and their relation to humans in Tantric Bud-
dhism would require an investigation of its own, exceeding the limits
of this paper. We have to confine ourselves to indicating just a couple
of remarkable aspects. A particularly striking fact is that in some texts
we corne across a practice that may appear somewhat shocking from an
early Buddhist point of view, viz. killing a living being for the sake of
its own welfare. This practice, which reminds one of the so-called "lib-
erators from transmigration" (sarrzsiira-mocaka) variously mentioned
in medieval Indian sources, 343 may be understood as a kind of fusing of
the emphatically negative evaluation of animal existence in the 'doctri-
nal strand' with the Mahayana ideal of active compassion (and specific
Tantric techniques of transferring beings into another form of exist-
ence). Already in some Mahayana texts a bodhisattva, motivated by
341. Cf. RGV 1.l66b (ristr-gaurava). Cf. also the Aligulimalfyasutra according to which
the presence of Buddha-nature (tathrigatagarbha, dhatu) in all sentient beings pre-
cludes both killing and meat-eating (Peking-Kanjur vol. Tsu: 203b7 f and 204bl-4.;
Tvol. 2: 540c2-4 and 22-27; cf. Seyfort Ruegg 1980: 236).
342.RGVI.118-120; TGS7A-7B (Zimmermann 2002: 131-133 and 300-303).-Cf. also
the fact that in Manicheism animals, even though to be protected on account of the
particles of light incarcerated in them, are nevertheless regarded as demonic crea-
tures (H.-P. Schmidt, ' ~ n c i e n t Iranian Animal Classification", in Studien zur Indo-
logie and Iranistik, 5-6 (1980), p. 232).
343. Cf. W Halbfass, Tradition and Reflection, SUNY, Albany, 1991, pp. 97-111, with ref-
erences to further literature (ibid. 120 n. 54; 123 n. 70; 126 n. 95); Phyllis Granoff,
"The Violence of Non-Violence: A Study of Some Jain Responses to Non-Jain
Religious Practices", in: The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist
Studies 15.1 (1992): 1-43, esp. 3-7; Paul Dundas, "Some Jain References to the
Thags and the Sarpsaramocaka", in JAOS, 115.2 (1995), pp. 281-284. The older ref-
erences to the saT!1sriramocakas are too early to refer to Tantriks, be they Saivas or
Buddhists, but seem to have been constructed on Iranian practices (Halbfass: loe.
cit.). Cf. also SDhSmr 104a8-1O and 16 f. '" SDhSmr(T) vol. 'u: 329a8-b1 and b4:
ritual killing of minute worms or insects motivated by wrong religious belief (cf.
Hob 314b36-41).
compassion, is, in specific situations, authorized to kill, namely in order
to protect the Buddhist religion or in order to prevent another person
from committing injurywhichvvould cut him off from liberation (cf.
pp. 98-99).344 This view is also found in Tantric texts, but here it was
extended to the idea ofjreeing (sgrol) beings belonging to the three evil
forms of existence -one of which is animals-from their unhappy state
by killing them, though this has to be done, to be sure, in a specific ritual
form that ensures their rebirth in a better form of existence. 345 This pro-
cedure seems to presuppose that by ritual means one is able to annul the
bad karma of the animal. This, however, requires special Tantric training
and is not possible for ordinary persons, and it appears that the practice
was exclusive and rarely performed. 346 On the other hand, even in eve-
ryday life Tibetan Buddhists, when they cannot avoid killing animals,
may relieve their conscience by reciting formulas intended to secure
the victim's rebirth as a human and hence its access to liberation. 347
Another way for animals to attain rebirth as a human is the consump-
tion of sacred substances in certain sacred areas which are regarded as
344. E.g., MPSMah 383b22-24, 384al-12 and a22-26 (Yamamoto 1973: 77 and 79 f.)
"MPSMah(T) 47b2f, 48b4-49a1 and 49a7f" T vol. 12 no. 376: 866c2-4, 867al-9
and a18f; BoBh 113,18 ff.; Mahiiyanasmigraha (ed. Lamotte) 6.5.1, with commenta-
ries; Sik:t 168,1; cf P. Demieville, "Le bouddhisme et la guerre", in Choix d'etudes
bouddhiquq, Leiden, 1973, pp. 379 f.; BudNat 54.1 and 55.1 (with n. 269); E To1a)
& c. Dragonetti, "Buddhism in face of justification of violence in ancient India",
in The Maha Bodhi, 101.2 (1993), p. 48; Kakan Fujita, "On the so-called 'Taking
Life' in the STIa-patala of the Bodhisattvabhami", in Mikky6 Bunka (Kayasan), 191
(1995), pp. 152-136 (in Japanese; with additional materials); Schmithausen 1999:
57-59.
345. D. Jackson, Enlightenment by a Single Means, Wien, 1994, p. 63; Karma Nges-don
snying-po, Rang bzhin rdzogs pa chen po 'i lam gyi cha lag sdom pa gsum mam par
nges pa'i bstan bcos kyi tshig don legs pa'i 'grel pa. Phun gling gsung rab nyams
gso rgyun spel dpar khang: fo1. 78a3; Dudjom Rinpoche, The Nyingma School of
Tibetan Buddhism: Its Fundamentals and History, transl. by Gyurme Dorje, Boston,
1991, pp. 603 and 767; Cathy Cantwell, "To Meditate upon Consciousness as vajra:
Ritual 'Killing and Liberation' in the rNying-ma-pa Tradition", in H. Krasser et al.
(eds.): Tibetan Studies, Wien, 1997, p. 108 n. 8; cf. also p. 107 n.3. For sgroi in gen-
eral see Schmithausen 1999: 59 f. (with some further references in ns. 68 and 72),
for the Saivite background of sgroI Halbfass 1991 (see fn. 343): 101 f. and Robert
Mayer, A Scripture of the Ancient Tantra Collection: The Phur-pa bcu-gnyis, Kis-
cadale, Oxford, 1996, pp. 104-128, esp. 123 f. and 127.
346. Jackson 1994 (see fn. 345): 63; Dudjom 1991 (see fn. 345): 603.
347. Vigoda 1989: 29.
a natural maI).<;lala of a Tantric deity. 348 In such an area, animals may,
moreover, be apparitional bodies of Tantric deities or their retinue, and
since in the individual case this is difficult to decide, hunting is, in these
areas, strictly prohibited. 349
4. Animal classification
In contradistinction to the Jainas,350 Buddhists do not appear to have
developed noteworthy interest in the classification of sentient beings or,
more particularly, animals. For the Jainas, for whom it was crucial to
avoid any form of injuring living, sentient beings, albeit unintentionally
or unknowingly, it was of paramount importance to precisely delimitate
the realm of sentient beings in order to make sure that none of them
is injured.
351
In Buddhism, on the other hand, abstention from killing
and injuring sentient beings is certainly accepted as a basic element of
morality and hence as a precondition for the path to liberation, but the
decisive steps of the latter are meditation and insight. Hence, caring
too much about borderline cases or unintentional injuring is regarded
as counter-productive by the Buddhists, and there is no genuine inter-
est in detailed classification of sentient beings or animals. Enumera-
tions like "wild animals (miga) and birds (pakkhin)"352 or "quadrupeds,
birds, reptiles and fish"353 are little more than attempts to indicate the
entirety of animals (or rather the so-called higher animals) by means of
everyday concepts. A more systematical scheme is the classification of
animals (including man) according to the number of feet: such as have
no feet, two feet, four feet and many feet. 354 The classification of ani-
mals according to their habitat (earth, water, air), so important with the
348. Ricard 1994: 248 (See Zhabs dkar pa'i rnam thar, Qing-hai 1985: 489,16-18).
349. Huber 1991: 70.
350. Cf. Pa/J!:r-avana-sutta (Jaina Agama Series 9.1, Bombay 1969) 56-59 and 61-91;
v. Glasenapp 1915 (see fn. 306): 65 if.
351. Cf. Dasavaikalika-ciln:ri (Indore 1933) 161,1 f.: sadhilnalJ1 ceva salJ1pulJI}II daya
jfvajfvavisesalJ1 ji'i/:zamalJalJalJ1, lJa u sakkadflJalJ1 salJ1pulJlJti daya jfvajfvavisesalJ1
ajalJamalJalJalJ1 bhavai tti.
352. E.g., DN III 61.
353. See p. 79 with fns. 172 and 173.
354. AN II 72; Vin II 110; III 47 and 52 (with a few examples for each category); SN
V 42. Cf. Hob 311.
Jainas, is, to be sure, hinted at in a canonical text
355
'but has no classi-
ficatory function there. 356 Not only animals but sentient beings in gen-
eral are subsumed under the classification according to mode of birth
(yoni): from a womb; from an egg, from moisture, and spontaneously
(opapiitika).357
There is, however, one early verse text
358
that is expressly concerned
with the distinction of species or classes of living beings. Although it
starts with plants ("herbs and trees")-obviously accepted here as living
beings, exceptionally -, the main part of the enumeration is constituted
by various classes of animals: worms and insects, quadrupeds, reptiles,
fish, and birds: The primary interest of even this text is, however, not in
classification as stich. The real purpose is rather to show that the differ-
ence between biological species or classes is entirely different from the
alleged difference between the castes, i.e. social classes.
The Milindapai'iha (267 f.) adduces a long list of various entities:
saints, other persons, various kinds of plants, of minerals, and, espe-
cially, of animals. But here too the motive is not interest in diversity or
classification as such. The text rather wants to stress that there is, among
all those manifold sentient and insentient beings, none that is not sub-
ject to aging and dying.
In the Vibhiio?ii translated by Buddhavarman,359 we come across a
classification based on a central concept of Buddhist spirituality, namely
greed. Here, animals are classified according to whether, out of greed,
they eat often or much: crows, etc., eat often but not much; elephants,
355. SN II 99. Cf. also MPPU 279c20 f. quoted Hob 312b (together with a classification
of animals into such as are nocturnal, diurnal, and both). There are many more ani-
mals in the water than on the land (SN V 467 no. 65). The ocean is stated to be the
original domain of animals at Vi 867a12 f. and AKBh 1 65,6f.
356. At AN II 33,8 f., we come across a distinction of animals according to their dwell-
ing-place: animals dwelling in holes, in the water, in the forest, and birds living in
the air (Mahiiniddesa [PTS] p. 14 instead: animals dwelling on trees), but in this
case, too, classification is not the primary purpose.
357. E.g., MN 173; DN III 230; T vol. 1 no. 1: 229a2; Y. Stache-Rosen, Das Smigftisutra
und sein Kommentar Smigftiparyaya, Berlin, 1968, p. 110 (IY.29); T vol. 2 no. 125:
632a8-17. At other places, the scheme is also used for classifying mythical beings.
Cf. Plants pp. 79-81.
358. Sn 600 if.
359. Tvol. 28 no. 1546: 165a24-29.
horses, etc., eat much but not often; wolves, dogs, etc., eat both often and
much; others do neither.
A context which may be worth investigating more in detail in this
connection is the doctrine of karma and its retribution, because some
texts (like the Saddharmasmrtyupasthiina-sutra, emphasizing in this
connection the immense number of species of animals,360 try to establish
correspondences between certain evil actions or emotions t . . ~ a t entail evil
rebirth on the one hand and the character of the animals one is reborn as
on the other (as, e.g., hatred and poisonous snakes: see p. 80). To what
extent this tendency has developed into a classification or typology of
animals must be left to further studies.
ABBREVIATIONS
-a -atthakatha ePTS ed.).
AKBh Abhidharmakosabha:fya by Vasubandhu, ed. P. Pradhan, Patna
1967.
AK!'U Upayika Abhidharmakosatfka, Peking Tanjur vol. Tu 1a1 - Thu
144a7.
AKVy Abhidharmakosavyakhya by Yasomitra, td. U. Wogihara, repr. Tokyo,
1971.
AN Aliguttaranikaya ePTS ed.).
A:ft A:ftasahasrika Prajnaparamita, ed. P.L. Vaidya, Darbhanga, 1960.
A:ftadas The Gilgit Manuscript of the A:ftadasasahasrikaprajiiaparamita,
chapters 70 to 82, ed. and trans!' E. Conze, Rome, 1974.
AWL Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Abhandlungen der
geistes- und sozialwissenschaftliche Klasse
BauDhS Das Baudhayana-Dharmasiitra, hrsg. von E. Hultzsch, Leipzig,
1922.
BoGoe
BudNat
BoBh
DBhS
Bodhisattva-goearopaya-vi:faya-vikurvar.za-nirdda, Peking Kanjur,
mDo, vol. Nu 37a8-101b8.
SCHMITHAUSEN 1991a.
Bodhisattvabhilmi, ed by N. Dutt, Patna, 1966.
Dasabhiimikasiltra, ed. J. Rahder, Paris/Louvain, 1926.
360. SDhSmr 103b-105a '" SDhSmr(T) vol.'u 328a-vol. Yu 2b. Cf. also MPPU
175a14-b1 (Lamotte 1949: II 951 f.); TSi 301b15-c16.
DhSk DIETZ (Siglinde), Fragmente des Dharmaskandha,' Gottingen, 1984.
DN Dfghaniktiya (PTS ed.).
EncBuddh MALALASEKERA 1961-.
RE (Major) Rock Edicts of Asoka, Ed. HULTZSCH (E.), Llscriptions of
Asoka, Oxford, 1925, pp. 1 ff.; ed. SCHNEIDER (U.), Die Groj3en Felsen-
Edikte Asokas, Wiesbaden, 1978, pp. 20 ff.
FWCh Fan-wang-ching(*Brahmajtilasutra), TBd. 24 no. 1484, pp. 997 ff.
Hob LEVI et al. 1929-.
Ja Jtitaka, together with its Commentary, ed. V. Fausb011, London
1877-1898.
Jm Jtitakamalti by Arya Sura, ed. by P. L. Vaidya, Darbhanga, 1959.
KtirVyu Ktirar;cjavyuha, in MahSuSg, pp. 258-308.
LAS Laliktivatiirasutra, ed. B. Nanjio, Kyoto, 21956.
LoPafi La Lokapafifiatti et les idees cosmologiques du bouddhisme ancien,
ed. E. Denis, Paris, 1977.
LoPra(Ch) Chinese version of the Lokaprajfiapti (Tvol. 32 no. 1644).
LoPra(T) Tibetan version of the Lokaprajfiapti (Peking Tanjur, Mngon pa'i
bstan beos, vol. Khu lal-112a1).
MahSuSg Mahiiytinasutrasangraha, pt. I, ed. P. L. Vaidya, Darbhanga, 1961.
Manu Manu-smrti, ed. 1. H. Dave, Bombay, 1972 ff.
Mhbh Mahiibhiirata, crit. by v. S. Sukthankar et al., Poona, 1933-41.
Mil Milindapafiha (PTS ed.).
MN Majjhimanikiiya (PTS ed.).
MPPU =*Mahiiprajfiiipiiramitii-Upadesa (Tvol. 25 no. 1509).
MPSMah Mahiiyiina-Mahiiparinirviir;asutra; Chinese version by
("Northern version"), T vol. 12 no. 374.
MPSMah(T) Mahiiyiina-MahiiparinirviilJasutra, Tibetan version from the San-
skrit, Peking Kanjur, mDo, vol. Tu 1al-158b8.
MVu
PE
Plants
PTS
RGV
Mahiivastu-Avadtina, ed. Emile Senart, Paris, 1882-1897.
Pillar Edicts of Atoka, Ed. E. Hultzsch (s. RE), pp. 119 ff.; ed.
K. L. J anert, Abstiinde und Schluj3vokalverzeichnungen in den Asoka-
Inschriften, Wiesbaden, 1972, pp. 127 ff.
SCHMITHAUSEN 1991b.
Pilii Text Society
The Ratnagotravibhiiga Mahiiyiinottaratantrasiistra, ed. by E. H. John-
ston, Patna, 1950.
SDhPu Saddharmapur:tarfkasutra, ed. P. L. Vaidya, Darbhanga, 1960.
SmigP STACHE-RoSEN (V), Dogmatische Begrijfsreihen im iilteren Buddhis-
mus Ii: Das Smigftisiltra und sein Kommentar Smigftiparyaya, Aka-
demie-Verlag, Berlin, 1968.
SBh V The Gilgit Manuscript of the Smighabhedavastu, ed. by Raniero
Gnoli, Rom, 1977-78.
SDhSmr Saddharma-smrtyupasthana-sutra, Chinese version, T vol. 17 no. 72l.
SDhSmr(T) Saddharma-smrtyupasthana-sutra, Tibetan version, Peking Kanjur,
mDo, vol. 'u 87b8-vol. Lu 248b8.
Sn
SN
SrBhu
SrfghT
T
TGS
TSi
Ud
Vi
Vi2
VijfzK
Yin
VinDh
VinMCi
VinMf
VinSa
VisM
WtibB
Ybhu
A Compendium of Buddhistic Teaching compiled by
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Saf!lyuttanikaya (PTS ed.).
SrCivakabhami, ed. Karunesha Shukla, Patna, 1973.
SphutCirtha SrfghanCicCira-saf!lgraha-tfkCi of ed. SaIigha-
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TaishO Shinshu Daizokyo (TaishO-edition of the Chinese Tripitaka).
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UdCina (PTS ed.).
(Abhidharma-Maha- -sCistra), transl. by Hsuan-tsang, T
voL 27 no. 1545.
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VijfzCinakCiya, Tvol. 26 no. 1539.
Vinaya of the Theravadins (PTS ed.).
Vinaya of the Dharmaguptakas, Tvol. 22 no 1428.
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118 LAMBERT SCHlVIITHAUSEN & MUDAGAMUWE MAITHRIMURTHI
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Attitudes Towards Animals in Indian Buddhism

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