Nepalese Hindus and Buddhists protest animal sacrifice

From Asia News:

A reform-minded group of Hindus and Buddhists has called on the Nepali government and their respective religious leaders to ban the annual animal sacrifice in honour of the goddess Durga, which can entail the butchering of up to two million animals in three days.

Dasai celebrations to honour the goddess, one of the most loved divinities in the Hindu pantheon, takes place every year for ten days. In the last three days, about two million animals — chickens, pigeons, geese and even buffaloes — are sacrificed. Both Hindus and followers of Tantric Buddhism practice this age-old ritual.

Until last April’s popular revolts against King Gyanendra, which turned the hitherto ‘Hindu’ kingdom into a secular state, the ritual was untouchable. Now the presence of a democratic government has encouraged many reform-oriented Hindu and even Buddhist groups to call for a ban on the ritual, which they see as “diabolic”. [...]

“Some Nepalese Buddhist practice this sacrifice,” added Bhante Satyabrata, a Buddhist monk from Lumbini (Buddha’s birthplace). “This is horrible. Lord Buddha would never have allowed such a monstrous act.”

Anyone with the slightest knowledge of the Buddha's teachings would know that animal sacrifice is completely contrary to the Dharma. (For example, see this essay by Professor Mahinda Palihawadana, President of the Sri Lanka Vegetarian Society.) Ritual slaughter on this grand scale is quite simply a massive violation of the first precept given by the Buddha.

Whenever I read or hear about a large-scale ceremonial animal sacrifice, I am reminded of the following passage from Sir Edwin Arnold's poem The Light of Asia:

     The King stood in his hall of offering.
On either hand, the white-robed Brahmans ranged
Muttered their mantras, feeding still the fire
Which roared upon the midmost altar.  There
From scented woods flickered bright tongues of flame,
Hissing and curling as they licked the gifts
Of ghee and spices and the soma juice,
The joy of Iudra.  Round about the pile
A slow, thick, scarlet streamlet smoked and ran,
Sucked by the sand, but ever rolling down,
The blood of bleating victims.  One such lay,
A spotted goat, long-horned, its head bound back
With munja grass; at its stretched throat the knife
Pressed by a priest, who murmured: "This, dread gods,
Of many yajnas cometh as the crown
From Bimbasara: take ye joy to see
The spirted blood, and pleasure in the scent
Of rich flesh roasting 'mid the fragrant flames;
Let the King's sins be laid upon this goat,
And let the fire consume them burning it,
For now I strike."

                      But Buddha softly said,
"Let him not strike, great King!" and therewith loosed
The victim's bonds, none staying him, so great
His presence was.  [...]

The Nepalese Buddhists who practise animal sacrifice need to be educated about their religious heritage, which rejects precisely this kind of ritual.

南無阿彌陀佛