Theravada Buddhism and Vegetarianism

This book aims to comprehensively survey and review the Sutta pi?aka teachings in terms of the role of vegetarianism in Therav?da Buddhism. To accomplish this, a two-pronged strategy was employed. First, most of the known English translations were scanned to identify related teachings. Second, the built-in word search function within CST was used to search for key words related to food, meat, and so on. These teachings were then organized in a framework that consisted of both...
More Description

This book aims to comprehensively survey and review the Sutta pi?aka teachings in terms of the role of vegetarianism in Therav?da Buddhism. To accomplish this, a two-pronged strategy was employed. First, most of the known English translations were scanned to identify related teachings. Second, the built-in word search function within CST was used to search for key words related to food, meat, and so on. These teachings were then organized in a framework that consisted of both selected limbs of the Noble Eightfold Path and topics of interest.In addition to a survey of the teachings, we have also tried to identify what the then-contemporary people understood of the teachings. One such source is Emperor Ashoka and his edicts while the second source is one of the J?taka depicted on the Bharhut Stupa.Final chapter provides both a standard for judging what is beneficial and what is not as well as guidance on what not to do and what to do. A comprehensive set of indices and a P??i-English glossary round-out the book, helping the reader to follow-up with extra reading and/or learn P??i for herself. It is sincerely hoped that this book will help all the seekers of welfare understand the teachings as they relate to food, help generate the right view, and help quicken their journey to the ambrosial taste of Nibb?na.