It is encouraging to note the protests against the proposed slaughterhouse. While this is commendable, this protest is rather an indirect way of responding to the issue. The primary emphasis should be made on stopping, abolishing and terminating all slaughter, in fact, all killing. It is unfortunate that all those who talk about animal slaughter some how restrict themselves to the slaughter of cows. This is clearly a result of Hindu influence, which deifies the cow. On the contrary, we must strive to put an end to all types of killing.

In our current way of protesting against animal slaughter that is fashionable today, other types of killing are conveniently overlooked. We must remember that ultimately all kinds of killing destroy life. There is no way we could give more value to a life that is housed in a physically larger mass of flesh. If we go on this basis, all those sumo warriors would be considered more valuable than Citizen Silva. However, as far as I can feel, this is the perception held by many Buddhists. A person thinking nothing about eating small fish, will be horrified at the death of a stranded whale, or at cattle slaughter. Unconsciously, he has linked the value of life to physical mass. To this day I could not verify to my satisfaction whether this line of thinking has any support in Buddhist philosophy. Whether this is so or not, I am sure that the Buddhist public at large entertains this view.

Once in a while, you come across the odd individual who has grappled this problem and has come to his own conclusions about it. Thus you find the Buddhist who has logically decided that the value of life has nothing to do with the size of the physical body. I heard of one who proudly announced that he prefers beef to fish as a Buddhist, as the former involves destroying one life that can satisfy the food requirements of many, whereas the latter option, i.e. eating fish involves destroying a large number of lives.

This man has recognised the problem for what it is worth: there is no escape from destroying lives; therefore, better kill the minimum to the maximum benefit rather than destroying a large number and becoming more sinful. Talking of sin, if destroying life is essential, how come it is a sin? In other words, why is something that is part and parcel of nature considered sinful? Are all the big fish that gobble down smaller fish, or the carnivorous animals that have to kill for food if they are to survive, all sinful? But I am wondering from the point.

The fact is that the sooner we can find a convincing answer to this question whether life-value is linked to body-mass or not, we can approach the issue in its proper perspective. If the answer is ‘Yes, life value is related to body-mass,’ then we can maintain the protest against killing larger species, the intensity of protest, too, being kept at par with the mass of the species involved, while ignoring, in a way, the killing of smaller forms of life such as fish and poultry. But the exact criteria to be exercised are somewhat vague at the moment. I mean whether we should link the importance of life only to the weight of the animal involved, only to the size, or to both, that is to the mass (scientific meaning intended,) or we should also take into account other factors such as the level of usefulness to man, the animal belonging to an endangered species, it being a harmful animal, etc. These fine points are left to experts, but the sooner we can clear this matter up the better it is for the future Buddhist generations.

On the other hand, if the Buddhist principle is found to be that life-value has nothing to do with the mass etc. of the animal, the outcome would be that all life is of equal importance irrespective of the size. In this case, we have a massive task at hand. Judged from this stand, cattle slaughter pales in to insignificance in front of the enormity of killing fish in their thousands, and mosquitoes in their millions. I really am at a loss to understand how we can tackle the implications of this stand. All of us who are appalled at bovine slaughter would have to get involved in the more serious task of protesting against the fishing industry, in a much more intense manner.

In an effort to dissuade the fish-eating public, we will have to come up with dramatic write- ups on how the fish is lured towards the net or the hook as the case may be, how it gets hooked, how the sharp iron hook pierces through its body cutting the intestines in to pieces, in fact all the gory details to the point it is served on the table. Coming to think of it, killing fish is done in a crueler manner than bovine slaughter. We may even opt to explore ways to make fishing humane. Anyhow, there is a lot to be done, but the start would be to resolve the question I stated above, i.e. whether the value of life is related to the body-mass of animal.
Anura Kuruppu
Narahenpita