King Devanampiyatissa’s deer hunt

Daya DISSANAYAKE

On Poson Day we 'celebrate' the arrival of Mahinda Thera and his meeting with Devanampiyatissa. We believe that the king, "set forth to enjoy the pleasure of the chase", but if he went on foot to the Missaka mountains with "forty thousand men" could it really have been to hunt deer and elk-stags, was it just a sport and did he consume the flesh of any such animals he killed? These questions came up in my mind as I read Cohen's article on the eve of Poson.

Jennie Cohen has brought forth an argument that "eating meat allowed humans to conquer the globe" (History.com, April 12, 2012).

"Eating meat may have allowed our ancestors to grow fruitful, multiply and spread across the planet, a new study suggests", wrote Cohen. Her article only supports our view that the 'Fall of Man' happened not on the day he ate the Apple, but on the day he first tasted the flesh of another creature.

Growing fruitful, multiplying and spreading across the world has caused all the pain and misery for most of mankind, while causing irreparable damage to Mother earth herself.

Cohen's article is based on studies by Ella Psouin of Lund University in Sweden, who claims to have found that "carnivores - animals that got 20 percent or more of their energy from meat - stop nursing their young relatively early" and that "lactation and suckling are known to inhibit ovulation", early weaning means the female could produce more children, with shorter gaps in between. Psouin could not be faulted on her observation, but on her basic assumptions.

She and her team has based this on the assumption that the pre-historic human female consumed 20 percent or more of meat.

This is a myth spread by Psouin's predecessors who developed the theory of a 'hunter gatherer', even though they have still not been able to find convincing evidence that early man did so much hunting'.

In our own country, Raj Somadeva says that he has not found any pre-historic cave paintings depicting hunting scenes.

The fact they had ignored is that even though the human infant is weaned early, mothers had been feeding them milk of animals, for many more years, the only animal in the world which has developed the ability to tolerate lactose for their entire lifetime.

Because of the myth spread by western scholars and their medical profession, that man has always been eating the rotting flesh of other animals, today it has become a life style and a major cause life-style diseases.

Those who look at the positive side of population increase and are proud of it, should then be proud of the starving millions in sub-Saharan Africa. The womenfolk in these societies probably do not get even one percent of meat products in their diet, yet they too go on producing children, even if they are unable to produce any milk for the infant.

The team may also have missed out on the elephants, where the female sometimes could feed a baby up to about five years, and produce another calf in between, which means weaning had nothing to do with their reproductive cycle.

Cohen has not given details about the women and infants included in the Lund University study, because any data gathered about the starving women and children in the under-developed countries would not have led to the conclusion, that "carnivorous mothers produce higher-quality breast-milk" or that "meat-eating young start digesting solid food earlier". Their study may not even have considered the voluntary vegetarians in the Indian sub-continent, where population growth far surpasses figure we have from heavily meat-eating societies in the so-called 'developed' world.

One ray of hope for vegetarians, is that Psouni herself counters their theory by saying, "findings have no bearing on the eating habits of people alive today".

It is time for us to open our eyes to see the reality, of unequal food distribution on earth, and the harmful theories of the benefits of meat eating, which only benefits the food industry and the drug industry.

If Tissa had really been a 'Beloved of the Gods', would he have enjoyed chasing and murdering innocent animals, and would the Gods still have loved him then? Gods would always love people who loved all life around them, because Gods love all living creatures and plant life too.

From this Poson day let us drop the 'i' from the vegetarian food we consume, which is 'poIsoned' with agrochemicals, due to the greed of the food producers, and let us drop 'poisoned meat' altogether, because it is poisoned with hormones, antibiotics and other harmful chemicals. Consumption of of the flesh of other animals involve killing, directly or indirectly. The torture and killing brings up the sadist in man, giving him a taste and a yearning for cruelty, which he uses against his fellow man and all other living things. This killing also makes man forget the value of life, all life. Thus in a vicious circle man will continue to kill, dismember and then eat meat and yearn for more meat. The only way to break out of this vicious circle is by stopping the consumption, so the need for meat disappears and the need for killing.

Then only, man would be able to practice 'Metta', as taught to us by the Buddha, the message brought to us by Mahinda thera.

Man's attempt to "conquer the globe" has been a total failure up to now, and will always be a failure, until he learns to control himself. And what better way than by following the path shown to us by the Buddha?

We can still 'celebrate' the arrival of Buddhism in our country, but let us give priority to learn what the Buddha taught us then, because it is the best way to honour and pay our respects to both the Buddha and Mahinda Thera.

[email protected]