hteous-souled Narada has said that that man who wishes to increase his
own flesh by eating the flesh of other creatures, meets with calamity.
Vrihaspati has said that that man who abstains from honey and meat
acquires the merit of gifts and sacrifices and penances. In my
estimation, these two persons are equal, viz., he who adores the deities
every month in a horse-sacrifice for a space of hundred years and he who
abstains from honey and meat. In consequence of abstention from meat one
comes to be regarded as one who always adores the deities in sacrifices,
or as one who always makes gifts to others, or as one who always
undergoes the severest austerities. That man who having eaten meat gives
it up afterwards, acquires merit by such an act that is so great that a
study of all the Vedas or a performance, O Bharata, of all the
sacrifices, cannot bestow its like. It is exceedingly difficult to give
up meat after one has become acquainted with its taste. Indeed, it is
exceedingly difficult for such a person to observe the high vow of
abstention from meat, a vow that assures every creature by dispelling all
fear. That learned person who giveth to all living creatures the Dakshina
of complete assurance comes to be regarded, without doubt, as the giver
of life-breaths in this world.[524] Even this is the high religion which
men of wisdom applaud. The life-breaths of other creatures are as dear to
them as those of one's to one's own self. Men endued with intelligence
and cleansed souls should always behave towards other creatures after the
manner of that behaviour which they like others to observe towards
themselves. It is seen that even those men who are possessed of learning
and who seek to achieve the highest good in the form of Emancipation, are
not free from the fear of death. What need there be said of those
innocent and healthy creatures endued with love of life, when they are
sought to be slain by sinful wretches subsisting by slaughter? For this
reason, O monarch, know that the discarding of meat is the highest refuge
of religion, of heaven, and of happiness. Abstention from injury is the
highest religion. It is, again, the highest penance. It is also the
highest truths from which all duty proceeds. Flesh cannot be had from
grass or wood or stone. Unless a living creature is slain, it cannot be
had. Hence is the fault in eating flesh. The deities who subsist upon
Swaha, Swadha, and nectar, are devoted to truth and sinceri