Abhinav Kumar

In this video, Buddha saves animals from being sacrificed by the Priests of those days. The Buddha was against animal sacrifice. He had to be, for he was staunchly opposed to killing. Killing, not just human beings, but all beings without exception. He expressed the view that it was all beings that deserved our compassion. During the time of the Buddha, many kinds of sacrifices were practised by Brahmins who were the priests of the Vedic religion professed by the upper castes of contemporary Indian society. The Buddha did not see any value in these sacrifices, primarily because they were entirely external rites. If one could speak of a ‘right sacrifice’, it had to be something that was internal or spiritual. “I lay no wood, Brahmin, for fire on altars Only within burneth the fire I kindle” of the Brahmins’ practice of tending a regular ‘sacred fire’ and pouring oblations into it for the various gods of the Vedic pantheon. This however was only a relatively harmless, albeit in the eyes of the Buddha useless, activity. The Vedic priests also advocated and performed several types of cruel animal sacrifices. The Buddha rejected all these sacrifices in no uncertain terms. For example, when he was told of a ‘great sacrifice’ that the king of Kosala was about to perform, where 2500 cattle, goats and rams were to be immolated, he declared: “Never to such a rite as that repair The noble seers who walk the perfect way.” And, in one of the Jataka stories (Bhuridatta), the future Buddha is reported to have said: “If he who kills is counted innocent, Let Brahmins Brahmins kill. We see no cattle asking to be slain. That they may gain a new and better life; Rather they go unwilling to their death And in vain struggles yield their final breath. To veil the post, the victim and the blow, The Brahmins let their choicest rhetoric flow”.