Kinship and Killing: The Animal in World Religions

IN ITS VALUATION OF ANIMALS BUDDHISM STANDS midway between Hinduism and Jainism, to both of which it is connected by geography, history, and some of its central ideas. It is closer to Jainism, however, in that the two are considered “heterodox schools of Indian thought” because they “reject the authority of the Vedas,”¹ and neither “allow[s] for a creator god; the cycle of life has been present from beginningless time.”²

The broader heterodoxy was to a great extent fueled by revulsion against the Vedic practice of animal sacrifice—observed by Joseph Campbell as late as 1954–55³ and even by the late twentieth century still practiced illegally in parts of India.⁴ According to Chapple, Hinduism, whose ancient roots and later forms alike otherwise show much of the same ambiguity as Buddhism toward other species, finally abandoned sacrifice in theory, largely under pressure from the other two religions.

Vegetarianism was also gradually adopted “by the Brahman or priestly caste. In the Rg Veda, Brahmans and others eat meat; by the time of the classical period, vegetarianism becomes a hallmark or indicator of high-caste status.”⁶ But, to give credit, mainly Hindu India now has the world’s highest rate of religiously inspired vegetarianism.⁷ And in the discussion of the Laws of Manu later in this chapter, the reaction against meat eating will be seen to have emerged from within the proto-Hindu tradition as well, rather than being entirely a response to outside pressure.

Although I have characterized the teachings of Gotama⁸ on animals as “centrist,” they form the most animal-supportive worldview considered in this book. Buddhism, like Hinduism, was modified under pressure from the Jains, and it retains its aggressive side, expressed particularly by the idea of animal birth as the result of sin, or (in the Buddha’s argument) lack of moral discrimination, and (following from that) the principle that generosity to animals incurs the least merit, compared with generosity to recipients higher up the karmic scale.⁹ The jatakas—tales of the Buddha’s earlier lives, which on the whole encourage identification with animals by depicting the future Awakened One as having taken animal form—nevertheless sometimes give approval to meat eating, exclude animals from enlightenment, or reflect the negative aspect of karma.

Evasive attitudes are found particularly with regard to work animals, whose exploitation is not recognized as wrong, perhaps because it seemed more necessary in the Buddha’s culture than did meat eating. These animals’ servitude is even likened to the rigors of monasticism. We can also see evasion in the second aspect of karma, which enjoins good behavior toward nonhumans by means of the hope that kindness to them, despite their lowly bourn (state of rebirth), will be rewarded: a qualified level of obligation. The jatakas also contain some examples of evasion.

Since Buddhism acknowledges, though it does not always meet, the claims of animals, its methods of dealing with the discrepancy are mostly defensive. The Buddhist defensive strategy’s tactics are many, beginning with those ethical ideas that came, literally, from the wish to defend oneself against possible harm from animals: principles of noninjury and friendliness—values that affect relations among humans also.

Another source of defensiveness is the capacity to identify with animals. Because of such feelings, when killing is felt to be necessary, much effort is made to prioritize species so as to do the least harm. Meat eating is allowed on the basis of two state-of-mind defenses and a third, lack of intention, is stressed to excuse the killing of small creatures. Rituals of propitiation persist in modern Buddhist culture, whereas political defensiveness is found particularly vis-à-vis the Jains and other rival creeds, and in the Lankavatara Sutra’s response to criticism of Buddhist ascetics who ate meat.

The most marked aggression is found in the unfavorable aspect of karma, an idea not confined to Buddhism. According to the Laws of Manu, which “codify the Hindu customary law,”¹⁰ “transmigration means that ‘people of darkness always become animals.’”¹¹ Even the Jains believe in “a hierarchy of states ranging from that of the gods (devas), humans (manusya), hell beings (naraki), to plants and animals (tiryanca).”¹² As in Buddhism, “the most important state to achieve is that of the human being, as this is the only state in which a living being (jiva) can be freed totally from the bondage of action (karma).”¹³

The Buddha specifically excludes beings in an animal bourn (that is, having been born as animals: my emphasis is meant to call attention to the absence of a fixed species identity) from entry into nibbana (Sanskrit nirvana: see note 9), since “there is no dhamma-faring there, no even-faring, no doing of what is skilled, no doing of what is good. Monks, there is devouring of one another there and feeding on the weak” (M.iii.169). So the lack of moral judgment in animals is the substance of his aggressive argument. But in most cases the scriptures give no empirical reasons when animals are placed on a lower level than humans.

The Buddha’s wish to place some distance between himself and animals is shown by his consignment of the canine and bovine ascetics to “companionship with” those animals on rebirth, and if such asceticism is accompanied by spiritual pride, to companionship with animals or to Niraya Hell (M.i.388).

The five states of rebirth, as outlined in M.s.12 (Majjhima Nikaya, sutta no. 12), are hell, where one experiences “feelings that are exclusively painful, sharp, severe”; animal birth: “feelings that are painful, sharp, severe”; the realm of the departed: “abundantly painful”; the human realm: “abundantly pleasant”; and heaven: “exclusively pleasant.” In the Majjhima Nikaya animals can be reborn as humans, but it takes a depressingly long time. The Buddha uses the famous simile of the blind turtle “who came to the surface once in a hundred years” and might eventually “push his neck through the one hole in the yoke” thrown by a man into the sea, and blown about by the winds, to illustrate the chances of such a progression. Having achieved it, the person is still in a very low family, “ill-favoured … deformed or paralysed” or otherwise disadvantaged (M.iii.169), and thence may go slowly upwards.

Revealing the moral ambiguity of karma, jataka no. 18 tells of a sacrificial goat who warns the priest that he himself (the goat) was once a priest and, for sacrificing a goat, was condemned to be slaughtered through five hundred lives: now it will be the priest’s turn. This seems to neutralize sympathy for the goat, whose slaughter, although wrong, is at the same time seen as a punishment for his earlier cruelty.

Past sins of animals are seldom mentioned in the Pali jatakas. However, in no. 159 we find that the Bodhisatta ¹⁴ himself has “[become] a peacock in consequence of some sin; however, golden I became because I had aforetime kept the commandments.” (ii.37 (159,25)).¹⁵ In no. 73, one of the many stories of mutual aid between human and animal, the snake and rat (neither of them the Bodhisatta) are said to have bad kamma, hence their form, but no further censure falls on them. In the Jatakamala, too, animal birth is identified with past sins.

While generosity is a key Buddhist virtue, the degree of merit attached to giving varies with the recipient according to a formula that contributes to the aggressive strategy by devaluing animals. When you give to an animal “the offering (yields) a hundredfold” (M.iii.255). For an “ordinary person of poor moral habit,” the yield is a thousandfold; for an “ordinary person of moral habit,” a hundred thousandfold; and so on up to the Tathagata (M.iii.255).¹⁶

Although meat eating is mostly treated defensively in the Pali scriptures, one jataka tale which positively legitimizes the practice is no. 241, in which Devadatta as a jackal king rouses lions to besiege Benares by frightening people with their roaring. The Bodhisatta outwits him, with the result that the elephants kill the jackal and the other animals fight and die.

In jataka no. 537, Angulimala, as a man-eating king exiled by his subjects out of fear, is converted by the Bodhisatta, plans to become an ascetic living on the vegan diet, which the jatakas formulaically attribute to ascetics, but is tempted back to his kingdom by the Bodhisatta with (among other things) the mention of the meat he will enjoy there. Afterwards he is “established … in the moral law” (xxi.509 (537,278)), but (unlike in some other reformed-king jatakas that refer to the treatment of animals) here only with regard to cannibalism. The same values are found in the Jatakamala version of the story.

Although karmic fluidity undermines hierarchy, even the more pro-animal jatakas contain the latter. The Bodhisatta as Naga-King (no. 506) wants to become enlightened and so leaves his lavish royal existence to enter the human world:

The Pali jataka version of the Nalagiri story¹⁷ is likewise inegalitarian: “The whole body of the elephant constantly thrilled with joy, and had he not been a mere quadruped, he would have entered on the fruition of the First Path” (xxi.336 (533,177)).

The Buddhist attitude toward animals in heaven—not the same as enlightenment, but representative of high spiritual attainment—is inconsistent. “As a rule, no being is born into Paradise in an animal body. But the Buddha does in fact create certain animals (notably birds) to dwell within Paradise forever.”¹⁸ Page makes the further point that where they are excluded “only animal bodies are excluded from this Paradise—not necessarily the animal beings (from former lives) themselves.”¹⁹ The Animal Judge would point out that, if the bodily form doesn’t matter, there seems no reason why an enlightened or blessed mind shouldn’t occupy an animal form.

The Buddha uses the domestication of a forest elephant as a simile for the process of monastic discipline, in that the elephant “has this longing … for the elephant forest,” but human beings, with a combination of force and kindness, pursue the aim of “subduing his forest ways … memories and distress … by making him pleased with the villages and by accustoming him to human ways” (M.iii.132).

The analogy is, of course, false. The difference between elephant and monk is that the latter voluntarily seeks mental freedom through monastic routine, while “a king’s elephant is one who endures blows of sword, axe, arrow, hatchet, and the resounding din of drum … he is … a royal possession” (M. iii.133)—neither his starting point nor his destination being one of choice and fulfillment.

The passage thus illustrates a difference in attitude toward kept animals and free animals, the latter being accorded considerable respect. The Buddha himself is symbolically identified with one of the most unambiguously free creatures: the lion, which, by contrast with the Christian lamb, is not domesticated for any economic purpose. We see here again the power of the daily habits of life, including the keeping of beasts such as cattle by ordinary people, plus the luxurious use of elephants and horses by Gotama’s upper-class supporters and family, who prized these animals: the wheel-rolling king receives, among other worldly benefits, the Treasure of the Elephant and the Treasure of the Horse (M.iii.173–74).

“The doctrine of non-injury was based on the belief that violence to any living being belonging to the wheel of rebirth had karmic consequences.”²⁰ Even though the unfortunate being, reborn as an animal, has erred in a previous life, if you take advantage it might be your turn in the next life. But this type of motivation is more self-interested than the wholeheartedly empathic facet of karma, which encourages identification with the other being, and which is discussed further in chapter 6. Kindness from fear of retribution is further limited by awareness of karma’s aggressive side, with kindness to former sinners being considered worthy but optional: it might be all right to hitch an animal to a treadmill as long as one does not starve or beat him also.

Evasion emphasizes kindness or welfare rather than equal moral status. Thus, although the Jains value noninjury more foundationally than Hinduism or Buddhism, it is “the Jaina community” that

The Animal Judge finds this very dubious. “If the Jains accept their role on the ground that others would perform it less humanely, that is no different from British vivisectors—who are by no means as kind as the Jains—lamenting that protests will lead to the experiments being done abroad where standards are much lower. One can only ask whether the Jains would test on nonvolunteer humans, so long as the humans were treated well and released after the tests. It also seems unlikely, because of the nature of medical research, that all animals can be rehabilitated or spared extreme suffering.”

Because of their usual extreme stringency, this departure by the Jains is surprising, whereas the participation in vivisection of individual Buddhists or Hindus, on various rationalizations, would not be.

The jatakas contain some passages that are evasive by virtue of condemning some act or attitude related to animal abuse, but not the abuse itself. For example, in no. 423 a man goes into the forest to live by killing deer, because (this being the story’s main moral criticism) he wishes to avoid work and family responsibility. In no. 30, in a lesson against envy and greed, an ox who envies a pig being fattened for slaughter is admonished:

Since Buddhism rejected animal sacrifice, it lacks this means of sanctifying the consumption of meat. The Aryans, from whom the Brahmin priests came, “enjoyed the meat of sacrificial animals.”²² That such sacrifices played an at least partly defensive role is indicated by the fact that the Laws of Manu “indicate that vegetarianism is part of this concept” (ahimsa), while, at the same time, other sections of these laws “seem to sanction flesh-eating under certain circumstances, such as during religious ceremonies involving ritual animal sacrifices.”²³ Specifically, the Laws of Manu “contain three separate recommendations: that only ‘kosher’ meat may be eaten; that only meat obtained through ritual sacrifice may be eaten; and that one should eat no meat.”²⁴ Bryant suggests that Manu’s simultaneous tolerance of sacrifice and intolerance of other meat eating is not just a pair of inconsistent, but equally endorsed, beliefs. Manu, he argues,

If Vedic sacrifices began with “attitudes … comparable to that in other sacrificial cultures … that invoked scriptural authority for legitimacy in the matter of the slaughter and consumption of animals,”²⁶ they soon acquired a dogmatic authority of their own; but conflict such as found in Manu and throughout the literature, reflected in the growth of the ahimsa principle, turned around to produce what Bryant refers to as “subversion” both of sacrifice and meat eating. See chapter 6 for Gotama’s denunciations of sacrifice.

Buddhism’s defensive realm includes ethical doctrines to protect against feared revenge or attack; attempts, through selection of which species to eat, to reduce the harm done by killing for food; state-of-mind defenses that establish the conditions under which monks are allowed to eat meat; and, finally, political defense through accommodation to outside criticism.

Free animals inspire respect as well as fear, both of predators and (where hunting takes place) of revengeful prey. In the Buddha’s time, when meat was apparently obtained mainly from kept animals, the fear of revenge could still exist in two ways: through seeing the free animals as in a position to avenge slaughtered kept animals; and through the legacy of ahimsa, which “appears to have started, in the Brahmana period, as a way of protecting oneself from the vengeance of injured animals (and plants) in the yonder world, and probably also from the vengeance of their congeners in this very life.”²⁷ Thus, “at the earliest phase of Hindu culture, ahimsa is not emphasized. The Rg Veda mentions ahimsa only in supplication to Indra for protection from violent enemies.”²⁸

(Kropotkin advanced a similar idea, “that the sense of justice originated in a guilty feeling that animals would revenge harm done to their kin.”)²⁹ Schmithausen identifies another Buddhist value, metta,³⁰ as having a “Vedic background of self-protection, though not so much from revenge than from spontaneous aggression.”³¹

In these cases of literal defense, conflict is expressed through fear rather than remorse, a fact that can be explained by the greater respect felt for free animals and also by the greater likelihood of encountering predators in the forest. But fear also requires sufficient empathy to credit the animal with a motive for revenge and to believe in the possibility that one might forestall aggression by communicating friendliness and goodwill.

The retributive aspect of karma, namely, the fear that cruelty to an animal may result in rebirth as one, may be seen as a form of literal defense, with the animal’s vengeance shifted to the next life.

When choices apparently need to be made, whether in the context of blame attached to killing human beings or of which animals to kill for meat, different formulas have been used to protect the Buddhist against loss of merit.

It may be considered “worse to kill a large animal than a small one, for the former involves a more sustained effort (Script. pp. 700–3). … To harm a virtuous person, or a respect-worthy one … is worse than harming others. Similarly, it is worse to harm a more highly developed form of life.”³² Many conflicts and ambiguities result from this hierarchy. Considering “size, complexity, and sanctity”³³ as factors identified by Ling (as by Harvey), Keown finds only the last straightforward in the sense that “to kill a Buddha would be to destroy not only life, but also the other goods such as knowledge and friendship which he has fulfilled to perfection”³⁴—but the later tathagatagarbha idea, namely, that potential Buddhahood resides in all beings, seems to undermine this.

Size and complexity are more difficult.

Since size and complexity do not go together, the variations in one, he points out, would have to exist as a subcategory within the other. Buddhaghosa “confines himself instead to the twin criteria of size and sanctity,” further introducing the factors of the assailant’s state of mind and degree of effort:

After specifying the criterion of sanctity, Buddhaghosa distinguishes that “where both bodily size and virtue are the same, it is a minor sin if the wickedness (kilesa) involved and the assault itself are moderate, and a great sin if they are extreme.”³⁷ Querying the importance of size in itself, Keown surmises that because of the extra effort required, size “here is only shorthand for the determination on the part of the assailants to do wrong.”³⁸

Another variation is that, in Northern Buddhist countries where the climate makes vegetarianism seem “impractical,” but much distress is felt about killing animals, “in general, large animals are killed for food, in preference to killing many small ones for the same amount of meat.”³⁹

All these rather tortuous formulas show clearly the regret felt over killing animals and the attempt to console oneself with the thought that at least one has done one’s best to limit the damage.

Monks’ responsibility for meat eating is denied by pretending not to know what they are doing, reinforced by the obligation to accept dana. Pointing out that monks’ food “is of course received in alms,” Ruegg summarizes the Vinaya rules:

As for the donor, he “may procure ‘available’ meat … without making himself guilty either of intentional … killing or of instigating others to kill”⁴¹—and this meat is all right for monks.

Mahayana⁴² Buddhists have argued strongly for vegetarianism, particularly in the Lankavatara Sutra, yet the Mahayana Surangama Sutra—which condemns meat eating—also contains concessions like those in the Pali scriptures. For example, it refers to the “five kinds of pure flesh that may be eaten by a beginner who does not see, hear of, or doubt about the animal having been killed purposely for him to eat, but is certain that it either died naturally or that its flesh had been abandoned by birds of prey.”⁴³

Harvey, noting that “Buddhist countries lack the mass slaughter-houses of the West” and that meat is more likely to be personally commissioned (which would have been even more likely in the Buddha’s time), remarks, “The position that meat is acceptable if someone else kills the animal is not necessarily an easy get-out clause.”⁴⁴

“But,” argues the Animal Judge, “consider the equivocacy of ‘knowing’ as against ‘not knowing’ in this situation. The monk may not know that the animal whose flesh is offered was killed specifically for him, or may definitely know that it was not; and the donor may similarly avoid establishing any direct link between the monk and the act of slaughter. But both donor and monk know that the animal was killed and in the process was caused to suffer, as described in the following passage, which refers to the demerit acquired by the killer in the case of unallowable meat”:

As Kapleau has observed, “Aren’t domestic animals slaughtered for whoever eats their meat? If no one ate their flesh, obviously they would not be killed, so how can there be a distinction between ‘It was not killed specifically for me’ and ‘It was killed for me’?”⁴⁵ Indeed, procuring such a product specifically for a holy person would only incur additional demerit for the donor if the product were in some way wrong in itself. There is also (as in the hierarchy of merit for generosity) conflict with the doctrine of anatta (insubstantiality; the person as a temporary set of conditions) in this moral separation of one prospective recipient and another.

As far as dana is concerned, there is an easy way out of the problem: just let it be known to supporters that meat is not welcome. Some British Theravadins today do this by specifying vegetarian food in lists of requisites pinned up in monasteries, a measure that reflects their surrounding culture and personal background. That the earliest Buddhists, who evidently had close contact with laypeople, were not able to convey a simple prohibition on meat (at least as dana for monks), but were able to convey the devious terms of its permissibility, creates a suspicion that the monks were, for what ever reason, not willing to give it up, uneasy though they were about it.

The resulting hypocrisy was noted by Ethel Mannin, writing in 1961, “that the Hindu and Buddhist ‘reverence for life’ often manifests itself in a refusal to kill animals, but at the same time readily accepts the products of other people’s killings.”⁴⁶

The Jivakasutta’s allowability rule—the same as that quoted above by Ruegg from other scriptures—is followed by a dialogue describing the desirable attitude of the monk who has accepted meat from a lay supporter:

The villain in this particular story is Nathaputta the Jain, who as a wealthy man in a previous life deliberately serves the ascetic Bodhisatta fish and then denounces him as in the first stanza. You can surmise that omnivorous Buddhists were a bit sensitive to the Jains’ disapproval.

While Buddhist vegetarianism has grown in the West, the “good attitude” argument is found among some meat-eating Western Buddhists today. “Kjolhede warns against vegetarianism as a kind of attachment”;⁴⁸ “I am vegetarian most of the time. If I feel I need to eat fish or fowl (occasionally), I do so with great gratitude and mindfulness of the life that supports my own.”⁴⁹

To the dismay of many Buddhist vegetarians, the Dalai Lama did not stick to the practice, which he adopted in 1965 on being moved by the suffering of a chicken being slaughtered for his lunch. He abandoned vegetarianism “on medical advice,” having “become severely jaundiced.”⁵⁰ Although he still believes “that a meatless diet is one of the practical corollaries of Buddhism’s pity for all sentient beings,” he too has used the “good attitude” argument:

In this emphasis on spiritual merit Buddhism is not so far from Hinduism. Even Gandhi, despite his own vegetarianism and ethical arguments, wrote:

Closely connected to ignorance, nonintention becomes a defense of killing small creatures and may have been stressed by Buddhism to make life tenable for people striving for perfection, the problem being where to draw the line. For the Jains, “all … strict vegetarians,”⁵³ “nonintention” excuses a narrower range of activities than it does for Buddhists.

“It should be acknowledged” comments the Animal Judge “that the Jain’s good intentions in a case where he is causing harm are still consequentially valuable; because his drawing the line of tolerable harms so close to the limits of survival, thus requiring a much higher threshold of necessity to excuse animal injury, means that he will endure more inconvenience and do less harm than the Buddhist who draws the line further in from those limits.”

Sutta 56 of the Majjhima Nikaya, the attack on the Jains, is an argument about intention, in which Upali claims that “wrong of body” is worse than “wrong of mind,” and the Buddha the reverse, his point being made with reference to unintentionally harming small creatures, as above. Nevertheless, consequences are important in Buddhism:

In Mahayana Tibet and Mongolia, where “the harsh, cold climate … has meant that most people … eat meat … those Lamas who eat meat … may perform a ceremony to help the dead animal gain a good rebirth.”⁵⁴ The sincerity of such actions is seen by the fact that in Tibet “hunting for sport is considered immoral, and Tibetans who move to more fertile lands, such as America, may become vegetarian.”⁵⁵ In modern Japan “animal experimenters will on occasion meet ceremonially to offer thanks to the animals they have sacrificed in pursuit of their biomedical goals.”⁵⁶ In the same spirit,

“The different degrees of necessity facing the Tibetan meat eater and the Japanese whaler are obvious,” observes the Animal Judge. “Still, there is hope in the fact that the whaling executives at least possessed consciences to salve.”

Criticism and the claims of rivals contributed to a policy of avoiding the destruction of small animals. The Sangha’s responsiveness to lay opinion is shown by the pro-ahimsa adoption of the rains retreat after

Defensiveness is further reflected in the hostility shown in the Majjhima Nikaya toward Jainism, which “in the Buddhist texts … comes out, with the Brahmins, as the chief rival to Buddhism.”⁵⁹ If as Berry contends, “In all likelihood, the Buddha was himself a Jain, and his teachings were a stripped down version of Jainism designed for the export market,”⁶⁰ once he had formed his own system, a negative reaction set in. There is great antagonism, for example, in M. sutta 56. Here and in sutta 35, a Jain sets himself up for defeat by bragging about how he is going to refute Gotama. In sutta 56 Nataputta is made to speak angrily and coarsely to Upali, saying “You, house holder, are out of your mind; you, house holder, are idiotic” (M.i.383), and at the end is portrayed as a foiled villain: “But because Nataputta the Jain could not bear the eulogy of the Lord, then and there hot blood issued from his mouth.” (M.i.387) Throughout M. sutta 101 the Buddha refers to the Jains’ views as “contemptible.”

In its rivalry with the Jains, Buddhism may have benefited from the former’s more stringent and demanding observance of the non-injury principle. Schmithausen notes

The response to censure continues in later Buddhism. Suzuki explains at the start of the Lankavatara Sutra’s chapter on meat eating: “This chapter … is another later addition to the text. … It is quite likely that meat-eating was practised more or less among the earlier Buddhists, which was made a subject of severe criticism by their opponents … hence this addition in which an apologetic tone is noticeable.”⁶² Here the political reaction contributed to the effective-defensive policy of advocating vegetarianism. The following is one argument advanced by the Buddha in this chapter:

As a primarily mystical worldview (that is, an account that promotes the experiential dimension of religion and the oneness of reality), Buddhism is favorable to animals but also contains aggressive features: most importantly, the belief in animal birth as a result of past sins or, as expressed more empirically, as lacking in the capacity for moral discrimination. Because of this, good behavior toward animals is considered less meritorious than that toward human beings. Jataka tales, despite sometimes portraying the Buddha as an animal in a previous life, can echo these negative ideas and even give explicit approval to meat eating.

Buddhist evasion is found in the case of animals used for work, a usage that, unlike killing for food, was not regarded as wrong; one text draws an analogy between their subjugation and monastic discipline. The doctrine of karma contains, besides its aggressive and defensive potential, the warning that although animal birth attracts a lower level of obligation, to mistreat animals will bring bad karma on the offender. This principle still leaves many dubious options open to human beings. Some examples of indirect (as distinct from the more usual direct) disapproval of animal abuse are also found in the jatakas.

Buddhism has various defensive means for confronting its culture’s violations of ahimsa. Noninjury itself, as well as the principle of metta, has been interpreted as emerging from a literal defense against possibly vengeful or predatory animals. Killing that is regarded as necessary is subject to a hierarchy of wrongness depending (varyingly and inconsistently) on size or complexity of species. Monks are provided with two excuses, related to their state of mind, for meat eating and are (more straightforwardly) absolved of guilt over the unintentional killing of small creatures. We also find rites of propitiation in present-day Buddhist societies and political defensiveness at both early and contemporary stages.

Having reviewed the means used by the four worldviews for dealing with conflict over animal exploitation, we can now turn to the forces both ancient and more especially modern that have impelled believers toward the more radical step of abandoning such exploitation. All these forces have emerged in various ways from the fact and principle of change, and I’ve called them in sum the effective-defensive strategy.