The institutes of Vishnu (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1880)

LI, 78. PENANCES. yyj
animal, and the murder of animals excludes the
murderer from heaven, therefore must meat be
avoided.
72. Reflecting upon the origin of flesh1 and
upon the (sin of) hurting or confining animated
creatures, he must abstain from animal food of any
kind.
73. He who transgresses not the law and eats
not flesh like a Pba/c’a, is beloved by men and
remains free from disease.
74. He who gives his consent to the killing of an
animal, he who cuts it up, he who kills it, the pur-
chaser and the seller, he who prepares it, he who
serves it up, and he who eats it, all these are
denominated slaughterers of an animal.
75. There is no greater sinner than he who, with-
out giving their share to the manes and to the gods,
wants to increase his own flesh with the flesh of
another creature.
76. Those two, he who performs a horse-sacrifice
annually for a hundred years and he who does not
eat meat, shall both obtain the same recompense for
their virtue.
77. By eating (wild rice or other) sacred fruits or
roots, and by living upon such grains as are the food
of hermits, a man does not reap so high a reward as
by avoiding meat.
78. (An eater of flesh must say within himself),
‘ Me he (maw sa) will eat in the next world, whose
72. 1 The human soul is enveloped in six sheaths, three of
which come from the father, and three from the mother. The
three that come from the mother are skin, flesh, and blood. Now
flesh is said in the .S’ruti to be derived from the menstrual discharge,
and the latter is one of the species of forbidden food. (Nand.)