Hinduism

Month of Aadi and its significance

According to the Tamil calendar, Aadi is the fourth month of the year. The first day of this month, is celebrated as Aadi Pirappu, which is an important festival to most Tamils, especially newly-weds. The Aagamas and the Vedas ascribe no special significance to the day and so it is seen and celebrated more as a traditional festival. Aadi is also a sacred month.

As Aadi Pirappu is important, on that day special food is prepared to herald the month - the Aadi koozl, a porridge which is served to all who may call on that day. Together with this, Aadi Sevvaai, the Tuesdays in the month of Aadi, Aadi Puram, the Puram asterism in the month of Aadi and Aadi Amavasai, the Amaavaasai day in the month of Aadi, are all important days.

Despite all these important days, the month of Aadi is considered an inauspicious month for occasions like weddings, housewarming ceremonies etc.

This day and the month are of great significance as Dakshinayana Punyakalam begins on this day - sun changes its course. Next six months from Aadi to Margazhi is considered to be the nighttime of the Devas. In 2008, Aadi Pirappu is on July 16.

Since it is the beginning of the nighttime of Devas people believe that the month is not auspicious and important ceremonies should be held during this month. But the month is also noted for numerous festivals and rituals therefore there is also an argument that the month is auspicious.

The month is also considered highly auspicious for the worship of Goddess Amman. On the Aadi Pirappu day people visit nearby temples and pray for a hassle free month as the monsoon is at its peak.

The month Aadi is also noted for a number of unique Tamil rituals and festivals and therefore many people are not ready to attach the inauspicious tag to the month and claim it to be auspicious. This year Tamil Month Aadi began on July 16 and will end on August 16.

The Tuesdays in the month Aadi is highly auspicious and is referred as Aadi Chevvai. The next important day and first festival in Aadi 2008 is the Aadi Karthigai. A festival dedicated to Skanda or Muruga. In 2008, it is on July 27.

The next auspicious day is Aadi Amavasai.

It is the auspicious day to pay tribute to dead ancestors. In 2008, it is on August 1.

The next important festival is Aadi Perukku. The festival is dedicated to River Kaveri and falls on the eighteenth day in Aadi Month. In 2008, it is on August 2.

Another auspicious day is Aadi Pooram. It is dedicated to Andal and in 2008, the date of Aadi Pooram is August 8.

One of the widely observed rituals in Aadi month is the Varalakshmi Puja. In 2008, the date of the Puja is August 15.

Vegetarianism in Hinduism

Vegetarianism is one of the essential dogmas of Hinduism, and it has for its basis the doctrine propounded elsewhere that all living beings have souls. To kill or torture a being that has a soul is not only cruel and inhuman, but a direct violation of the ordination of God. We have no right to take the life of a fellow being which has as much right to live in this world as any of us.

Benevolence to follow beings is one of the cardinal doctrines of Hinduism, and that religion may therefore be found to preach a crusade against taking animal life. The sin is rendered more heinous when it is committed in self-interest, i.e. with the object of feeding fat on the flesh of the animals slaughtered.

Vegetables themselves have, of course, souls according to the Hindu doctrine, but their sense of feeling being far inferior to that of animals, it cannot be said that the former are subjected to any appreciable suffering by killing them, nor can it be said that they are as much profited by living in this world as the latter.

It must again be observed that a vegetarian need not necessarily take away the life of a vegetable being - what is required for his food being only a portion of it, which could be easily detached without taking away the life of the object.

The gravity of the sin may be found to be still reduced, when we consider the feasibility of propagating vegetable lives, while in the case of animal lives it is quite the reverse.

It cannot, however, be denied that the taking away of the life of a vegetable being, or even the severing of certain portions of it without depriving it of its life, is a sin in itself, although of a very minor degree.

This is because our Karma is such that even for living a life in this wretched world we are obliged to commit a sin, one way or the other.

It is a necessary evil, but the necessity could be no excuse for choosing the worst of it, while there is ample opportunity to choose the least of it; and if a choice is made of the least of it, the necessity or indispensability of doing the evil will go a long way in mitigating the punishment decreed for it.

In fact the religion provides ample means in our daily life for the expiation of the sins committed in taking away vegetable lives or in causing pain to vegetable being - while no such expiation is provided for the taking away of animal life, evidently because it cannot be considered a necessity for maintaining our body, such maintenance being amply provided for in the vegetable kingdom.

It has been put forward as an argument in favour of the necessity of killing animals that there are regions where vegetables cannot grow, and cannot therefore be available for human consumption.

I do not consider this argument sufficiently strong. Even admitting for the sake of argument that there are regions where vegetables cannot grow at all, they can very well be imported into such regions from the tropics where they grow in abundance, or the human beings in such regions could do well to migrate to places where they can find a suitable food supply instead of sticking to places where they would be compelled to kill their fellow beings for the purpose of keeping their body and soul together.

Another argument put forward in favour of flesh eating is that nature has intended man to live on flesh. This has been fully exploded by modern scientific investigations.

A third argument set up in support of animal food is that it is more nutritious and healthier than vegetable food, and that it will be highly detrimental to the physical development of man to deny him animal food.

This is another hallucination under which meat-eaters generally suffer. Modern science has made it clear that vegetable diet is immensely superior to meat, both as regards health and nutrition, and there are various books and booklets published by the vegetarian societies of America and England on the subject, demonstrating by facts and figures the comparative advantages of the one over the other.

The following passages from the work of an eminent writer on the subject (Human Physiology by J.L. Nicholas M.D.) will bear reproduction:-

“The natural food of man is abundantly furnished in the vegetable kingdom. Three fourths of the human race live on grains, fruits, bulbs, tubers, and the leaves and stalks of plants. Wheat, rice, Indian corn, rye, oats, barely, sago, tapioca, arrowroot, potatoes, yams, onions, cabbages, breadfruit, plantains, are the great staples of food of man. Add to these grapes, apples, pears, peaches, plums, limes, melons, berries and we have a variety of the most healthful and delicious articles of food abundant for all our needs.

To these provisions of a bountiful nature, we have added the milk of cows, goats, camels, sheep and in some cases of mares and asses with butter and cheese.

“Can we naturally go further? Ought we to deprive any animal of life that we may feed fat upon its body?........ When we come to the warm red blooded animals, the birds and beasts which seem to be more nearly related to us, we may well doubt of our right to deprive them of life and eat their flesh for food.

I have already expressed the opinion that man is naturally a fruit eating animal and that he finds his most natural and most healthful food in the vegetable kingdom, that though the use of fish and flesh may be justifiable as a necessity (sic) it is not the original or best food of man, and that the most perfect health and therefore the highest use and enjoyment of life may be obtained on a purely vegetable diet, and when a mixed diet is used I can have no doubt that the smaller the quantity of flesh and the larger the proportion of fruit and vegetable substances, the better will be the health of the great majority of persons.”

“The food should be pure, free from all deceased and deceasing matters. We can never be sure of the healthfulness of the animal whose flesh we are eating; with grains and fruits we have a much greater security. And all flesh must contain waste matter not yet cast out.”

It is contended by a certain section of the non-Hindu community that the prohibition of animal food is only a later introduction into the religion of the Hindus, while in the earlier books of that religion, such as the Vedas, animal food may be found to have been fully sanctioned.

This, I must say, is a sad mistake - and one of the many evils that result by the reading and interpretation of the religious literature of one nation by another nation entirely strange and foreign to it, without some one to guide them.

The Vedic literature may be found to have been largely supplemented by several subsequent Sastras such as Smritis, Puranas, Itihasas, etc., and these supplementary Sastras may be found to speak in unmistakable terms of the prohibition of animal food by the Hindu religion.

These supplementary Sastras were compiled by authors who were best competent to do the work and who were fully aware of the correct sense and import of the original Vedic literature, and whose works have been tacitly admitted by all the adherents of the religion as works fully consistent with the Vedic revelations.

There is therefore no reason to suspect that the prohibition of animal food is only a later introduction or in any way opposed to the sense of the Vedic doctrine. Passages could be found in the Vedas themselves in support of the doctrine, though not in a direct form.

As an instance, the Satapatha Brahmana of the Rig Veda may be found to describe how animals revenge in a future state of life injuries and death inflicted on them by man in this life; and there are several other passages in the Mantra and Upanishat portions of the Vedas that strongly support the theory.

If the prohibition of taking animal life is opposed to the sense of the Vedas, surely the theory could not have been accepted alike by the different schools of the Hindu Philosophy and religion, which are at variance with each other on several other important points. It is true that animal food or rather animal sacrifice is provided for in the Vedas, but this does not go to show that meat is sanctioned by the Vedas as an ordinary diet.

Medical works may be found to prescribe certain forms of poisons and certain forms of diet for certain ailments and this will not go to show that such poisons and diets were articles of ordinary food with the people of the time at which those medical works were written. The object for which animal food, or more correctly, animal sacrifice, was sanctioned by the Vedas must first be ascertained before passing an opinion on the sanction so given.

Vedas cannot be treated in the light of a history or of an account of the general life of the ancient Aryans of India. They can only be said to represent the religious life of the people of the ancient Aryavartha, and that too, in a certain direction - in the performance of Yajnas in order to secure secular advancements.

It is a serious mistake to give this portion of the Vedic literature a general character, dismissing altogether from consideration the particular object for which such portions were intended.

Killing of animals and the eating of their flesh are only provided in the Vedas for sacrificial purposes, and it would be worth while to have a careful perusal of those passages and form a correct idea of the nature and necessity of these sacrifices and of the rites and ceremonies performed thereat.

The Vedic Mantras and rites are considered so effectual in themselves, that the souls of the animals offered in sacrifice are purified and despatched at once to some form of heaven or other, while the performers of the sacrifice are given some form of grace or other in a secular plane.

This grace is compared to the fee a tutor gets in return for the instruction that he imparts to his pupil; as the instruction imparted by the teacher is much more valuable than the fee he gets, so, in the case of sacrifices, the animals offered are far more profited than the parties who perform the sacrifice, the animals offered are far more profited than the parties who perform the sacrifice, and the killing of animals in these cases is therefore justified and sanctioned.

It is not for me to profound here the principles on which animal sacrifice is based, but I will only say that the sanction given in the Vedas to kill animals for sacrificial purposes, and that too not applicable to this Kaliyuga, cannot be taken at all for a sanction to the eating of meat as a general article of food.