 Eastern vegetarianism basic features
Added: 04/13/2006 |
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The history of Eastern vegetarianism can be traced to Indian and Chinese cultures. From the beginning the circle of vegetarian reasons was limited mostly by religious ones. It was Buddhism and Hinduism philosophies that partly prohibited meat eating and prepared human mentality in the way that most representatives deliberately choose the way of vegetarian culture.
The Far East area has always been considered to be the centre and the cradle of the eastern vegetarianism culture. They were Indian and Chinese civilizations that gave birth and roots to vegetarian cuisine and eastern vegetarianism itself. But almost all historians agree about the crucial significance in the item of vegetarian development of India.
The basis of Indian cuisine is represented merely with traditional Indian vegetarian dishes the history of which can be traced to far away the 5th century B.C. Historical facts show that Indian cuisine gained its own vegetarian traditions from the ancient civilization (the most common examples are Mohenjodaro or Harappa). Some certain data is still under discussion as the main scripts were not discovered. In spite of these uncertain facts it is proved that Aryans people that came to Northern Indian region were representatives of meat cuisine. And during the time of their territory controlling meat was welcomed and consumed rather often. But emergence of Buddhism and Jainism changed significantly history itself and influenced the line of Indian cuisine development in a crucial way. The basis of these religious philosophical streams is represented by eternal principle of non-violence, one of the main ahimsa rules. Animal sacrifice was embodied in new Brahminical ideas and a number of vegetarian diets in practice that eventually captivated the Indian cuisine itself.
It is clear that any new historical, social or just fashionable stream has its own reasons. As for vegetarianism case, the main reasons are rather obvious and indisputable. At the stage of its development they were religious and mere philosophical. Today the list of vegetarianism reasons is headed by the main one - finally the humanity has realized that the path of vegetarian food is the way of healthy life.
But new nutrition variant introduced by hinduism and buddhism leaded to new physical and mental abilities. Eastern vegetarianism conception borrowed a lot from hinduism vegetarian and buddism vegetarian traditions. Today it is clear that exactly Hinduism is the oldest religion that has connection with vegetarianism concept. According to some of its principles vegetarianism is considered to have a holy essence. The common basis of buddhism and hinduism is the principle of non-violence.
The history of massive vegetarian traditions (that were influenced much by eastern vegetarianism reconstructions and crucial changes) starts in the beginning of 20th century and lives its revolutionary in the middle of the century. The American society went through a real meat boom that resulted in massive obesity and line of serious health diseases (the USA take the first position of the level of hear attacks, cancers, diabetes and other strong health problems). Although the meat price was and still is high, the popularity of meat does not drop. Another very important and terrible problem connected with non-vegetarian food is the new streams of artificial food industry development. The profit of many companies is resulted in numerous new diseases and infections.
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