Part 1: Cross-Cultural Recognitions Between Vegans & Jains

Spiritual Veganism & Jain Abhakṣya Food Prohibitions

The modern vegan movement is often framed as a Western cultural phenomenon, but corollaries which posit a similar goal of not causing any more harm than what is absolutely necessary exist in a variety of non-Western cultures. The reasons and methods may differ, but this similarity problematizes the stereotype that veganism is a modern, Western phenomena.

Several years ago, a vegan friend of mine shared that she had driven halfway to work when she realized that there were ants in her car that she had inadvertently taken from home. For this friend, those ants were worthy of immense moral consideration. Would they be able to survive away from their home? Would they suffer from loss of food and shelter? Would they suffer from emotional and psychological distress from being separate from their other co-inhabitants, their “friends,” “family,” and “loved ones”? My friend, becoming distressed by these thoughts, elected to turn around, and drove back home in the effort to reunite these little sentient beings with their home, causing her to be late for work. The reason she gave? Veganism. Her story was met by great approval by many other vegans with whom she shared the story.

This sentiment, an analogue of which is commonly found amongst vegans, would clearly be recognizable to Jains. Such a form of veganism—one that is prevalent amongst Western vegans—goes far beyond simply abstaining from eating animal products. It goes far beyond a moral code; the sensitivity that it displays demonstrates such a great perceptive refinement and commitment of faith to the idea that compassion is a sufficient axiom around which one might orient one’s life, that it might be considered spiritual veganism. This is recognizable to the Jain tradition, which demonstrates its own indigenous forms of a similar sensitivity for reasons that are not generally the same as those cited by Western vegans, but they nonetheless maintain a similar awareness about the immense suffering that we, as humans, inflict on other beings, many of whom are so minute as to escape our mundane perceptual range. Western vegans and Jains, for very different reasons, and often in very different ways, share this mutual goal of causing as little suffering as possible in even the smallest of our daily actions. And sometimes, due to this mutual recognition, Jains increasingly elect to follow a vegan diet and lifestyle. In an earlier blog post, Dr. Christopher Miller writes, 

“Jains remain the global torchbearers of Mahāvīra’s message of non-violence… One powerful expression of non-violence comes from the many groups of Jains who have transitioned to a vegan lifestyle”[1] (Christopher Miller 2022). 

Jain “Foods That Are Not To Be Eaten,” Abhakṣyas

Abhakṣyas are foods that are “not to be eaten” by Jains because they are considered to cause more harm than other foods. According to Cort, they constitute an “ideological frame for mendicant discourse on Jain foodways” not all of these are necessarily universally binding for all Jains, perhaps in contrast to Jewish and Muslim prohibited foods.[2] Another insightful colleague of mine at Arihanta Institute, Dr. Jonathan Dickstein, has written an informative post that gives some of the philosophical and doctrinal rational behind Jain abhakṣyas. In particular he lists three main reasons for the prohibitions: 

“First, Jain ethics, including food ethics, is governed by the principle of nonharming (ahiṃsā)… Second, all ensouled organisms have at least the sense of touch (sparśa) and are thus capable of experiencing suffering. Third, microbes (nigodas), ‘elemental organisms’ (e.g., water-bodied organisms/āpo-kāyikas) and plants (vanaspati-kāyikas) are inhabited by at least one soul (jīva). Viewed together, these three points generate a concern for causing harm (hiṃsā) not only to humans and other animals, but to plants and microscopic organisms as well”[3] (Jonathan Dickstein 2023). 

These abhakṣyas are listed in a number of sources. Perhaps the oldest list of 22 foods that are considered to be abhakṣayas originates from the 11^th century Pravacanasāroddhāra, composed by Nemicandra. These include (1-5) five udumbaras, or types of fruits such as figs that have excessive seeds that themselves constitute individual lifeforms. (6-9) Four types of vikṛits, which are foods that must be abstained from by laity (Wiley lists meat, alcohol, honey, and five kinds of figs, [4] but it may also include the common list of meat, alcohol, honey, and fresh cream/butter). (10) Snow (hima) is forbidden because it is believed that it kills excessive numbers of water-bodied (ap-kāyas) beings. (11) Poison (viṣa) may seem like a strange restriction to have to list, but sometimes it is believed that certain poisons can be consumed to counteract mantras, and later texts include opium here, for example. These are forbidden because they are believed to kill gaṇḍolakas, or organisms that live in the stomach. (12) Ice is forbidden for similar reasons as snow and (13) earth (mṛd) must not be consumed because of the significant number of pṛthvī-kāyas, “earth-bodied” beings that live therein, but also because trasa-jīvas (mobile living beings with multiple senses) with five senses (like frogs) are believed to generate from earth, and the consumption of earth is believed to be the cause of a variety of maladies. However, salt, which is made of earth, is not considered one of the abhakṣyas because it is believed to be necessary to sustain life.[5]

(14) Of particular importance rātri-bhojana, or the “eating in the evening” where it is believed that eating after dark carries an increased risk of inadvertently harming various organisms, a topic that I will write a future blog post on where I will examine the rationale behind rātri-bhojana, and cite some Jain sources that discuss the relevance of this abstention therein (see Part 3: Veganism & Jainism A Cross-Cultural Recognition: Rātri-bhojana; Not Eating After Dark).[6]

The next abhakṣya is (15) foods that are bahu-bīja, or “contain many seeds” such as pomegranates, etc., where the risk is that each individual seed could contain a lifeform. Similarly, (16) ananta-kāyas are plants that “contain multiple embodied souls,” generally referring to plants whose reproductive processes involve producing various types of offshoots, such as stolons, rhizomes, bulbs, plants that shed leaves, etc. Another interesting prohibition is (17) the injunction against consuming sandhānas or “pickled” or “fermented” foods, which compounds the number of living entities that the products contain during the fermentation process, which is a similar reason for (18) the prohibition against ghola-vaṭaka, or lumped buttermilk.[7]

A less intuitive prohibition is (19) the injunction against consuming eggplants which are believed to be aphrodisiac and sleep-inducing. I think that (20), the injunction against consuming flowers and plants that are unidentified, seems to be very prudent and hopefully a commonsense measure for most people (since one cannot be sure that they are not poisonous). But a less intuitive injunction is against eating plants that are tuccha-phala, or that “result in hungriness,” that is to say, that they are so low in calories (in modern parlance) that one can eat a great deal of this food, and still remain unsatiated, thereby killing excessive beings and perhaps excessively contributing to the violence inherent in any consumption. Examples of tuccha-phala include bael fruits, rose-apples, flowers of the mahua, and Indian horse-radish. And the final item on the list, (22) are foods that “taste like they are gone” (calita-rasa), which includes leftovers which are believed to also have a surplus of microorganisms.[8]

In my next three blog posts, I’ll continue to analyze the inter-cultural significance of Jain abhakṣyas and veganism while focusing on the particular rational behind rātri-bhojana, “evening eating,” where the discourse around that abstention seems to have a sort of kinship to modern vegan discourse, inspiring me to continue to ask the question, “Is veganism spiritual?”