Far Eastern Vegetarianism
Misturu Kakimoto of the Japanese Vegetarian Society writes: “A survey
that I conducted of 80 Westerners, including Americans, Englishmen and
Canadians, revealed that approximately half of them believed that
vegetarianism originated in India. Some respondents assumed that
vegetarianism had its origin in China or Japan. It seems to me that the
reason Westerners associate vegetarianism with China or Japan is Buddhism.
It is no wonder, and in fact we could say that Japan used to be a country
where vegetarianism prevailed.”
Gishi-wajin-denn, a history book on Japan written in China around the third
century BC, says, “There are no cattle, no horses, no tigers, no leopards,
no goats and no magpies in that land. The climate is mild and people over
there eat fresh vegetables both in summer and in winter.” It also says that
“people catch fish and shellfish in the water.” Apparently, the Japanese ate
fresh vegetables as well as rice and other cereals as staple foods. They
also took some fish and shellfish, but hardly any meat.
Shinto, the prevailing religion at the time, is essentially pantheistic,
based upon the worship of the forces of nature. According to writer Steven
Rosen, in the early days of Shinto, no animal food was offered in sacrifice
because of the injunction against shedding blood in the sacred area of the
shrine.
Several hundred years later, Buddhism came to Japan and the prohibition of
hunting and fishing permeated the Japanese people. In 7th century Japan, the
Empress Jito encouraged “hojo,” or the releasing of captive animals, and
established wildlife preserves, where animals could not be hunted.
There are many similarities between the Hindu literature and the Buddhist
religions of the Far East. For example, the word Cha’an of the Cha’an school
of Chinese Buddhism is Chinese for the Sanskrit word “dhyana”, which means
meditation, as does the word “Zen” in Japanese. In 676 AD, then Japanese
emperor Tenmu proclaimed an ordinance prohibiting the eating of fish and
shellfish as well as animal flesh and fowl.
During the twelve hundred years from the Nara period to the Meiji
restoration in the second half of the 19th century, Japanese people enjoyed
vegetarian style meals. They usually ate rice as staple food and beans and
vegetables. It was only on special occasions or celebrations that fish was
served. Under these circumstances the Japanese people developed a vegetarian
cuisine, Shojin Ryori (ryori means cooking or cuisine), which was native to
Japan.
The word “shojin” is a Japanese translation of “vyria” in Sanskrit, meaning
“to have the goodness and keep away evils.” Buddhist priests of the
Tendai-shu and Shingon-shu sects, whose founders studied in China in the
ninth century before they founded their respective sects, have handed down
vegetarian cooking practices from Chinese temples strictly in accordance
with the teachings of the Buddha.
In the 13th century, Dogen, the founder of the Soto sect of Zen, formally
established Shojin Ryori or Japanese vegetarian cuisine. Dogen studied and
learned the Zen teachings abroad in China, during the Sung Dynasty. He fixed
rules aiming to establish the pure vegetarian life as a means of training
the mind.
One of the other influences Zen exerted on the Japanese people manifested
itself in Sado, the Japanese tea ceremony. It is believed that Esai, founder
of the Rinazi-shu sect, introduced tea to Japan and it is the custom for Zen
followers to drink tea. The customs preserved in the teaching of Zen lead to
a systematic rule called Sado…a Cha-shitsu or tea ceremony room is so
constructed as to resemble the Shojin, where the chief priest is at a
Buddhist temple.
Food served at a tea ceremony is called Kaiseki in Japanese, which literally
means a stone in the breast. Monks practicing asceticism used to press
heated stones to their bosom to suppress hunger. Then the word Kaiseki
itself came to mean a light meal served at Shojin, and Kaiseki meals had
great influence on the Japanese.
The “Temple of the Butchered Cow” can be found in Shimoda, Japan. It was
erected shortly after Japan opened its doors to the West in the 1850s. It
was erected in honor of the first cow slaughtered in Japan, marking the
first violation of the Buddhist tenet against the eating of meat.
In his 1923 text, The Natural Diet of Man, Adventist physician Dr. John
Harvey Kellogg writes:
"An eminent English lady, Mrs. Ernest Hart, wife of the editor of the
British Medical Journal, stated in an article contributed to The Hospital
that in her opinion the unhappy, miserable home life which is so common in
England, is due to the free use of flesh foods in that country.
"She held up in contrast with the English home the domestic peace and
happiness that prevail in the homes of the rice-eating Japanese, where harsh
words are unknown, and where exquisite politeness is universally practiced,
even among children playing upon the streets.
"The writer has been frequently informed by missionaries that urbanity of
temper is almost universal among the Japanese who have been a vegetarian
people for many centuries. Their disgust for flesh is well illustrated by a
story told the writer by a clergyman who had long been a missionary in
Japan.
"He stated that while having a portion of meat cooked in his house upon one
occasion, his housekeeper called upon him and said, with great firmness and
dignity, 'Honorable sir, I can no longer endure the smell of this burning
flesh. It is very horrible...
"The business of slaughtering animals is a training school for murderers.
Some time ago, a boy murderer, less than a dozen years of age, took the
lives of several children and playmates, enticing them into a neglected
cellar for the purpose, and there cutting their throats from ear to ear.
"He was the son of a butcher who was assisted in the business by his wife.
It is a significant fact that in most countries it is a recognized custom to
exclude butchers from juries in the trial of cases of murder."
An example of a Buddhist vegetarian in the modern age: Kenji Miyazawa, a
Japanese writer and poet of the early 20th century, who wrote a novel
entitled Vegetarian-Taisai, in which he depicted a fictitious vegetarian
congress…His works played an important role in the advocacy of modern
vegetarianism. Today, no animal flesh is ever eaten in a Zen Buddhist
monastery, and such Buddhist denominations as the Cao Dai sect (which
originated in South Vietnam), now boasts some two million followers, all of
whom are vegetarian.
The Buddhist teachings are not the only source contributing to the growth of
vegetarianism in Japan. in the late 19th century, Dr. Gensai Ishizuka
published an academic book in which he advocated vegetarian cooking with an
emphasis on brown rice and vegetables. His method is called Seisyoku
(Macrobiotics) and is based upon ancient Chinese philosophy such as the
principles of Yin and Yang and Taoism. Now some people support his method of
preventative medicine. Japanese macrobiotics suggest taking brown rice as
half of the whole intake, with vegetables, beans, seaweeds, and a small
amount of fish (optional, but not required).
In his 1923 book, The Natural Diet of Man, Adventist physician Dr. John
Harvey Kellogg writes: “According to Mori, the Japanese peasant of the
interior is almost an exclusive vegetarian. He eats fish once or twice a
month and meat once or twice a year.” Dr. Kellogg writes that in 1899, the
Emperor of Japan appointed a commission to determine whether it was
necessary to add meat to the nation’s diet to improve the people’s strength
and stature. The commission concluded that as far as meat was concerned,
“the Japanese had always managed to do without it, and that their powers of
endurance and their athletic prowess exceeded that of any of the Caucasian
races. Japan’s diet stands on a foundation of rice.”
According to Dr. Kellogg: “the rice diet of the Japanese is supplemented by
the free use of peanuts, soy beans and greens, which… constitute a wholly
sufficient bill of fare. Throughout the Island Empire, rice is largely used,
together with buckwheat, barley, wheat and millet. Turnips and radishes,
yams and sweet potatoes are frequently used, also cucumbers, pumpkins and
squashes. The soy bean is held in high esteem and used largely in the form
of miso, a puree prepared from the bean and fermented; also tofu, a sort of
cheese; and cho-yu, which is prepared by mixing the pulverized beans with
wheat flour, salt, and water and fermenting from one and a half to five
years.
“The Chinese peasant lives on essentially the same diet, as do also the
Siamese, the Koreans, and most other Oriental peoples. Three-fourths of the
world’s population eats so little meat that it cannot be regarded as
anything more than an incidental factor in their bill of fare. The countless
millions of China,” writes Dr. Kellogg, “are for the most part
flesh-abstainers. In fact at least two-thirds of the inhabitants of the
world make so little use of flesh that it can hardly be considered an
essential part of their dietary…”
Misturu Kakimoto concludes: “Japanese people started eating meat some 150
years ago and now suffer the crippling diseases caused by the excess intake
of fat in flesh and the possible hazards from the use of agricultural
chemicals and additives. This is persuading them to seek natural and safe
food and to adopt once again the traditional Japanese cuisine.”
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