Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/189

 SANCTITY OF ANIMAL LIFE 155 by persons who utterly deny all forms of the soul theory. It is easy to understand that believers in ideas of this kind may be led logically to regard the life of an insect as entitled to no less respect than that of a man. In practice, indeed, the sanctity of animal was placed above that of human life, and the absurd spectacle was sometimes witnessed of a man being put to death for killing an animal, or even for eating meat. The most pious Buddhist and Jain kings had no hesitation about inflicting capital punishment upon their subjects, and Asoka himself continued to sanction the death penalty throughout his reign. He was content to satisfy his humanitarian feelings by a slight mitigation of the sanguinary penal code inherited from his stern grand- father in conceding to condemned prisoners three days' grace to prepare for death. In early life Asoka is believed to have been a Brah- manical Hindu, specially devoted to Siva, a god who delights in bloody sacrifices, and he had consequently no scruple about the shedding of blood. Thousands of living creatures used to be slain on the occasion of a banquet (samaja) to supply the kitchens of the over- grown royal household with curries for a single day. As he became gradually imbued with the spirit of Bud- dhist teaching, this wholesale daily slaughter became abominable in his eyes and was stopped, only three living creatures at the most, namely, two peacocks and one deer, being killed each day, and in 257 B. c. even this limited butchery was prohibited.