Rig Vedic Hindus enjoyed drinking alcohol and eating meat

by Guest Sun Mar 13, 2016 1:35 pm

We are brought up these days to regard abstention from alcohol and vegetarianism as being at the core of Hindu belief. Prohibition, meatless weeks, etc are all justified on the grounds of Indian tradition. When a certain section of conservative Hindus want to diss other Hindus, they refer to their meat-eating ways and their fondness for alcohol.
In fact, ancient Hindu texts are full of references to alcohol. And in what is hailed these days as the Golden Age of Hinduism (the centuries when the Vedas and our great epics were written), our heroes delighted in consuming the flesh of animals.
Most of us are familiar with the term Soma, which we generally take to be an ancient drink. In fact, says Taylor Sen, Soma refers to both a hallucinatory (possibly) and intoxicating (certainly) substance and the plant it came from. Nobody is sure quite what the Soma plant was. Candidates include a hallucinogenic mushroom, cannabis (the source of bhang) and a shrub called somalata.
Whatever the origin, the Soma plant seems to have been treated to produce a strong liquor, which was often diluted with milk. Its effects sound a lot like those of today’s alcoholic drinks, not to mention recreational drugs.
Taylor Sen quotes verses from the Vedas: “One of my wings is in the sky; I have nailed the other below. I am huge, huge! Flying to the cloud. Have I not drunk Soma?”
Or “We have drunk the Soma. We have become immortal. We have gone to the light. We have found the gods!”
This does make it sound as though it imparted a high of some kind. And yet the Rig Veda contains hundreds of references to Soma, including a whole chapter of 114 hymns dedicated to the glory of Soma. In fact, there are more references to Soma in the Rig Veda than there are to the holy cow.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/brunch/a-bite-of-india-s-culinary-history/story-jBw23XTLXmg5Wu47H4RtsI.html

by Guest Sun Mar 13, 2016 1:38 pm

We know, for instance, that the Vedic Aryans believed in sacrificing animals: goats, sheep, oxen, horses, birds, etc (it has now become controversial to say that cows were sacrificed, so let’s leave that aside). After the sacrifices, the meat of the animals was eaten.
There is no suggestion that the heroes of the Ramayan and the Mahabharat were vegetarian and there are many references to meat – such as the antelopes Lakshman killed and which were later cooked and eaten...

And when I say that our forefathers were non-vegetarian, I mean an extreme form of meat-eating that many modern-day Hindus would be uncomfortable with.
The Manasolassa, a second-century text, lists foods commonly eaten in that era: blood sausage, goat’s head, grilled stomach membrane and barbecued rat. A dish called panchvarni was made by simmering pieces of intestine with spices. (They also loved intestine kababs.) Goat brain was cooked with fermented rice. The stomach membrane was folded into layers, cut into pieces and fried in oil!
So no, vegetarianism is certainly not an integral part of the ancient Indian tradition....

Secondly, the notion that Hindus learned to make kababs from Arabs is just plain wrong. Texts dating back to 500 years before the birth of Christ have references to meat being cut into pieces and cooked on a skewer. Perhaps our spicing and marinades were different from those popular in the Middle East. But the idea of a barbecued kabab is entirely Indian.

Rig Vedic Hindus enjoyed drinking alcohol and eating meat

Rig Vedic Hindus enjoyed drinking alcohol and eating meat

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