ABSTRACT
THERE are as regards food three things which a Brahmin must avoid with the most scrupulous care: he must not eat anything that has had life or has even contained the principle of life; he must not drink intoxicating liquors; he must not touch food that has been prepared by persons of another caste. It is no greater privation to a Brahmin to abstain from eating meat, accustomed as he is from his earliest youth to go without it, and even to look upon it as abominable food, than it is for us to refrain from eating the flesh of certain domestic animals, for which, either from natural prejudice or from its unpleasant taste, we feel a strong repugnance. Thus, when a Hindu abstains from all animal food, he is only conforming to a feeling of unconquerable repulsion, the result partly of imagination and partly of long-established custom. I once met a Brahmin who, on seeing some eggs being broken and beaten up for an omelette, immediately complained of feeling unwell, and in the course of a few moments was violently sick.
