DEIVATHIN KURAL # 134 (Vol #3) Dated 03 Oct 2009.

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 134 (Vol #3) Dated 03 Oct 2009.
(These e-mails are translations of talks given by Periyaval of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam, over a period of some 60 years while he was the pontiff in the earlier part of the last century. These have been published by Vanadi Padippagam, Chennai, in seven volumes of a thousand pages each as Deivathin Kural. To day we are proceeding from the middle of page 593 of Vol 3 of the Tamil original. The readers are reminded that herein 'man/he' includes 'woman/she' too, mostly. These e-mails are all available at http://advaitham. blogspot. com constantly updated.)

84. Normally the non-vegetarians make fun of the vegetarians, for being consumers of cereals and pulses in a big way. Foreigners make fun of Indian visitors that we are wasting all the available meat in our country and eating only such vegetarian things as to become weak and debilitated. Mostly since it is the Hindu-s who are vegetarians, there is a concept that we lost the nation to Muslims and later to the Europeans, (Britishers mainly), because of the weakness caused by being vegetarians! We will touch this issue once again later. But, first let me teach you as to how to reply the non-vegetarians.

85. The suggested reply runs something as follows:- "There are some African and South American tribes known to be fond of eating human flesh. They are ridiculed by you people as some crude, atrociously crass and uncivilized aborigines and called derisively as cannibals. You cannot on the one hand make fun of them as well as us who do not eat any meat at all. We have every reason to feel proud and superior to both youand cannibals, as we are more civilized. You hold the view that, if all Indians give up their vegetarianism, their will be no scarcity in India. There are occasions when there is scarcity in your countries too. You have better cold storage facilities. I offer you a counter suggestion that you could store your dead bodies instead of burying them and wasting them, to overcome the needs of scarcity situations?!" I am just loudly sharing the counter argument with you!

86. Another point. Vegetables perish. Then they do smell bad. Even the water used to wash the rice, prior to cooking, smells bad. But the smell of fish can be very bad, even when not yet rotten! The other items of non-vegetarian items could be offensively nauseating, to say the least. Some of these vegetables like cabbage and beet-root can also smell bad like the non-veg items! That is why they are not preferred on religiously ceremonial occasions.

87. Not only are those non-veg items offensive to the olfactory nerve ends, they are not body friendly too. The fact that they are not easily acceptable to the digestive system, is made very clear every time the World Vegetarian Congress takes place. They do a comparison of the teeth, nails, intestines and stomach of the carnivores and herbivores. By the by, you will be surprised to note that, by that token, human beings are herbivores! So, they prove that humans are not meant to eat non-veg at all!

88. Now think of it. Can you make the animals such as goat, sheep, cow, deer, horse, zebra and elephant; eat meat? But man endowed with the sixth sense that is not available to the animals, still is stupid enough to eat non-veg that he is not supposed to eat! Yes amongst animals, there are carnivores, herbivores and some who are ambivalent, such as dog, cat, crow, sparrow and so on. Should man remain at their level only?

89. God also retains his option to play His ‘Leela’ and see the fun! Having given man the power to discern, having not given the man the digestive system for non-veg items, He has not made it absolutely impossible for man to digest the non-veg food either. Does man eat sand or stone or iron? No. Similarly, had it been totally impossible for man to eat and digest non-veg food, Man would not have thought of non-veg as an option at all! God’s ‘Leela’ it is to see the tussle between, man’s difficulty in digesting the non-veg food and his discerning power to avoid it for reasons of Ahimsa and Sattva, is the dichotomy! If the whims of the tongue wins and man’s mind power of discernment fails; it is sheer stupidity on Man’s part!

90. Now let me come back to the point about the wrong notion that physical power is due to consuming and absorbing more protein in the form of animal flesh! How do you compare strength? We do not talk of Lion power or power of the Tiger! We talk of Horse Power or Elephant Power. The earlier ones are destructive while the latter are constructive. Elephant is cool, calm and docile, not easily perturbed. When it gets mad, a forest is not enough to contain it! Is its power resultant of eating meat? Elephant would not even give such things a second look!

91. “sashays trunair vanagaja balino bhavanti”, says Bhartruhari. Sushkam is dry. When the ‘ginger’ is dry, it is called ‘sukku’ in Tamil. ‘Sukku’ is the Tamil derivative of ‘sushkam’. When someone is tight fisted, we call him ‘sushkam’! Here the elephant eats only the dry leaves and grass, that is, ‘sushkais’! ‘Trunair’ means, bits and pieces. Eating such things, the Elephant is so mighty and powerful. Despite being endowed with so much power, it is embodiment of peacefulness and ‘ahimsa’! Look at the Tiger and Lion, you will see them with so much of agitation, restlessness and fearfulness of attack from others! With physical might, it is also full of memory and intelligence. It co-operates willingly with man. In places like Kerala, Burma and Malaya, it moves very heavy trees and works as a handy tool of man. By vegetarian food it gets all the Sattva qualities of, brains, humility, co-cooperativeness!

92. sarppaa: pibhanti pavanam na cha durbhalaaste
sushkais trunair vanagaja balino bhavanti I
gandai: phalair munivaraa: kshapayanti kaalam
santosha eva purushasya param nidhaanam II
This slokam is by Bhartruhari as I told at the start of the previous para. It means:- ‘Snake which intakes only air is not so weak. Eating only dry leaves the elephants are so powerful! Eating roots and fruits in the forest, the Rishi-Muni-s could live long keeping death at arm’s length! So mental contentedness is the main cause of health and happiness!’ It is understood that the cause is not food, and not ‘asaattvic food’ anyhow!

93. When I was a small boy, there was a young professor Rama Moorthy. He used to be known as ‘Ramamoorthy Sandow!’. He was a Telugu speaking man, who owned a circus company. As he himself was a show man, he would demonstrate many feats. In one he would tie himself with ropes around his waist, to two Ford cars on either side. Then he will let the cars be started simultaneously. He will hold them on either side, literally at arms length, with the palm of his hands, without much ado! The audience would be flabbergasted!

94. When his company was camping in Kumbakonam, he tried his level best to invite me to visit his circus. But the old people in the Matam said that, such visit is against the customs and traditions of the Matam! There was a huge open space behind the Kumbakonam Matam those days. So, Mr. Ramamurthy Sandow, visited us with his entourage and gave demonstration of a few ‘items’ of theirs! We were wondering as to how someone could be so powerful! I am mentioning all this to you because, he was a Vegetarian! Anyhow, you know that, the mighty powerful Anchaneya was a vegetarian monkey only!

(To be continued.)

Sambhomahadeva.