[Advaita-l] Fwd: vedic yajna

[Rajaram Venkataramani]

Dear Shri Venkatesh, is your position that Vedas allowed animal sarifice in
other yugas or that they never allowed any animal sacrifice though
historically there was animal sacrifice due to misunderstanding of Vedas?
Or is your position that the restiction only applied to cows in all yugas?

As you may be aware, Shri Haridas Sastry holds the view that all animal
sacrifices are a corruption of the ideal position of the sastras, which is
ahimsa. His students argue that go in gomedha yajna does not refer to cow
just as indra yajna does not refer to sacrifice of Indra. They argue that
aja refers to seed and not goat and sastras do not allow sacifice of any
animal. They say that the corruption started in satya yuga itself which is
why we find smrti sastras (not only puranas and itihasas but also srauta
sutras) describing animal sacrifice. They argue that just because we find a
historical account of animal sacrifice including cow or some acharya admits
that there is animal sacrifice, we cannot say that it is an ideal position
prescribed by the Vedas. They say that many sages have tried to stop animal
sacifice through different means (substitution, yuga restriction etc.)
beause the sages understood ahimsa is parama dharma. They base their
position on etymologial analysis such as aghnaya means invioble and adhvayu
is on who does not cause injury etc.

On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 8:15 AM, Venkatesh Murthy <vmurthy36 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Namaste
>
> Some kinds of animals were used in sacrifices in earlier Yugas but not
> cows. In earlier Yugas they did so many things we cannot do now .
> This is not the important point. What should we do now? But now the
> animal sacrifices are prohibited by Smruti like Parashara Smruti. In
> Sraddha meat is prohibited now. What do they do? They substitute by
> Urad Dal dish because Urad Dal is equal to meat but still vegetarian.
> Similarly when a sacrifice requires some animal we have to substitute
> by some vegetarian product. We have to follow our Yuga Dharma.  We
> should not refer to some ancient practice and follow it without
> consulting Smrutis.
>
> On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 11:20 PM, Rajaram Venkataramani
> <rajaramvenk at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 6:41 PM, Venkatesh Murthy <vmurthy36 at gmail.com
> >wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> I agree but we have to know what the Vedas are saying exactly.
> >>
> >>
> >> RV: Dear Venkatesh, I appreciate your concern for animal rights. Is your
> >> position that the Vedas support animal sacrifice including cow but
> prohibit
> >> them in kali yuga? Or that Vedas do not prescibe animal sacrifice at
> all?
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> --
> Regards
>
> -Venkatesh
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