The Vegetarian Traditions — Jain, Brahmin and Vaishnava

The vegetarian table of India grew out of the close of the Vedic period, when the older Brahminical rites, which admitted cattle, swine and wild animals among the creatures to be sacrificed, met the teaching of non-violence preached by the Buddha and by Lord Mahavira, founder of the Jain faith. Its home was the Gangetic plain and the country around it. Today the tradition belongs above all to Hindu and Jain households, and it is found in every region of the subcontinent.

The early Vedic world did not keep a vegetarian table. Animals were sacrificed, and the earliest Ayurvedic physicians did not oppose meat: Charaka recommended it, and its broth, for the convalescent and for those at heavy labour. The change was felt towards the end of the Vedic age, at the time Buddhism and Jainism arose, both teaching the doctrine of non-violence to their followers. As growing numbers turned to these newer faiths, Hindu priests, anxious at the loss of their people, began to speak against the killing of animals. They took up ahimsa and a meatless diet, holding it superior to the old rites of sacrifice and proclaiming it so. The vegetarianism of the Brahmin is therefore in part a considered answer to a rival teaching, and it became a sign of ritual purity and standing. In present-day India roughly one person in three eats no meat, and the greater part of them are Hindu or Jain. Buddhists in India mostly eat meat, holding it permitted provided they have had no part in the slaughter. The Jain table is the strictest expression of the principle, and the vegetarian kitchen as a whole is defined as much by what it leaves out as by what it cooks. Egg is counted as non-vegetarian, and Jains and vegetarian Hindus do not eat it. Classic vegetarian recipes would not use it even to bind a dish, since it would turn some diners away, and the eggless cake has a sizeable market in India for the same reason. The Vaishnava table, devoted to Vishnu and his avatars, is likewise meatless, and the temple and the household offering give much of the regional vegetarian repertoire its shape. Against this stands the wider variety of the subcontinent. In many places meat and fish are costly and eaten only now and then, while communities such as the Pathare Prabhus of Mumbai eat them regularly, often cooked with vegetables. The vegetarian traditions are thus one strand among several, but one that has shaped the thali, the pulse and vegetable cooking of the south and west, and the idea of a meal prepared within rules.

The vegetarian table is built on pulses, grains, vegetables, dairy and the tempering of whole spices in hot fat, and its dishes are meant to stand complete without meat. Because egg is excluded even as a binder, the cook turns to pulse flours, starch and yoghurt to hold a dish together, and the eggless cake is a familiar sign of the same rule. In the thali the meal is laid out as a set of small dishes, each seasoned differently, eaten with rice or bread.