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Concept
Vegetarianism and religion
Summary
The practice of vegetarianism is strongly linked with a number of religious traditions worldwide. These include religions that originated in India, such as Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. With close to 85% of India's billion-plus population practicing these religions, India remains the country with the highest number of vegetarians in the world.
In Jainism, vegetarianism is mandatory for everyone; in Hinduism, Mahayana Buddhism and it is promoted by scriptures and religious authorities but not mandatory. In the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), the Bahá'í Faith, vegetarianism is less commonly viewed as a religious obligation, although in all these faiths there are groups actively promoting vegetarianism on religious grounds, and many other faiths hold vegetarian and vegan idea among their tenets.
Jainism institutes an outright ban on meat. The majority of Indians eat meat and only about 30% of India's 1.2 billion population practices lacto-vegetarianism.
Jain vegetarianism
Vegetarianism in Jainism is based on the principle of nonviolence (ahimsa, literally "non-injuring"). Vegetarianism is considered mandatory for everyone. Jains are either lacto-vegetarians or vegans. No use or consumption of products obtained from dead animals is allowed. Moreover, Jains try to avoid unnecessary injury to plants and suksma jiva (Sanskrit for 'subtle life forms'; minuscule organisms). The goal is to cause as little violence to living things as possible, hence they avoid eating roots, tubers such as potatoes, garlic and anything that involves uprooting (and thus eventually killing) a plant to obtain food.
Every act by which a person directly or indirectly supports killing or injury is seen as violence (hinsa), which creates harmful karma. The aim of ahimsa is to prevent the accumulation of such karma. Jains consider nonviolence to be the most essential religious duty for everyone (ahinsā paramo dharmaḥ, a statement often inscribed on Jain temples).
Official source
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