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The view that we should avoid eating meat or fish has ancient philosophical roots. In the Hindu Upanishads (about 1000 BC) the doctrine of reincarnation leads to opposition to eating meat. Buddha taught compassion for all sentient creatures. Buddhist monks were not to kill animals, nor to eat meat, unless they knew that the animal had not been killed for their sake. Jains hold to ahimsa, or non-violence toward any living creature, and accordingly do not eat meat. In the Western tradition, Genesis suggests that the first diet of human beings was vegetarian, and permission to eat meat was given only after the Flood. After that, vegetarianism gains little support from either the Jewish or Christian scriptures, or from Islam. Philosophical vegetarianism was stronger in ancient Greece and Rome: it was supported by Pythagoras, Empedocles, Plutarch, Plotinus, Porphyry, and, in some passages, Plato. Pythagoreans abstained from eating animals partly because of their belief that humans and animals share a common soul, and partly because they appear to have considered the diet a healthier one. Plato shared both these views to some extent. Plutarch's essay On Eating Flesh, written in the late first or early second century of the Christian era, is a detailed argument for vegetarianism on grounds of justice and humane treatment of animals. DETAILS - CLICK HERE

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