[Advaita-l] Fwd: vedic yajna

[Venkatesh Murthy]

Namaste

On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 9:55 AM, Rajaram Venkataramani
<rajaramvenk at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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?
I am not interested in what happened in earlier Yugas. What is our
duty now in this Yuga? This is important. In earlier Yugas animals may
have been sacrificed. I have not done a deep study. I cannot say if
that is correct or a corruption of Sastras like Haridas Sastry says. I
am not qualified to make a judgement on that. But I understand Smrutis
are prohibiting such sacrifices in this Yuga very clearly. The Veda
Vakyas talking animal sacrifices must be revised for our Yuga after
studying the Smrutis. I am not saying we should revise Sruti Vakyas in
any way we think. The revision has to be done by consulting Smrutis
and Sistachara only.

>
> 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.
I cannot comment what happened in other Yugas is correct or a
corruption. I think people must concentrate on what we should do now
in this Yuga instead of debating what was correct and what was corrupt
in other Yugas. We have to respect Dharma Sastra books like
Vaidyanatha Dikshitiya and Nirnaya Sindhu. They have a lot of
importance.

>
> 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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-- 
Regards

-Venkatesh