Far Eastern Vegetarianism

[Guest guest]

Far Eastern Vegetarianism

 

by Misturu Kakimoto

 

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 flesh.

Shinto, the prevailing religion at the time, is essentially

pantheistic, based upon the worship of the forces of nature. 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, the then Japanese emperor Tenmu proclaimed an

ordinance prohibiting the eating of fish and shellfish as well as

animal flesh and fowl. Subsequently, in the year 737 of the Nara

period, the emperor Seimu approved the eating of fish and shellfish.

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 Rinzai-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 serve 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...

 

As an example of a Buddhist vegetarian in the modern age, I can

mention 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 such 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 preventive medicine. Japanese

macrobiotics suggest taking brown rice as half of the whole intake,

with vegetables, beans, seaweeds, and a small amount of fish.

 

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 book, The Natural Diet of Man, 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 potatos 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 to-fu, 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 eat 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 east 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... "

 

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.