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(14) When is this food exhausted?” “Seven days will pass before the energy of this food will be exhausted; again Ananda, if a Sravaka who has not yet entered into the ranks of steadfastness partake of this food, he can attain to the ranks of steadfastness before it is exhausted; if [a Sravaka who] has entered into the ranks of steadfastness partake of this food, he can obtain liberation of mind before it is exhausted; if one who has not yet cherished the thought towards the Mahayana partake of this food he can cherish the thought before it is exhausted; if one who has cherished the thought [towards the Mahayana] partake of this food, he can attain to the acquiescence in the eternal law before it is exhausted; if one who has attained to the acquiescence partake of this food, he can attain to the state in which he is bound by one birth only before it is exhausted; just as a medicine called ‘the excellent flavour’ which has such a peculiarity that one who has taken it can exterminate all poison of passions before it is exhausted, even so this food exterminates all poison of passions before it is exhausted.”

(1) 'Man (purusha), my son, consists of sixteen parts. Abstain from food for fifteen days, but drink as much water as you like, for breath comes from water, and will not be cut off, if you drink water.'

(1) 'When the Father produced by intellect and austerity seven kinds of food' — truly by intellect and austerity the Father did produce them. ' One of his [foods] was common to all.' That of his which is common to all is the food that is eaten here. He who worships that, is not turned from evil, for it is mixed [i.e. common, not selected]. 'Of two he let the gods partake/ They arc the tmta (fire-sacrifice) and thtfra/mta (offering). For this reason one sacrifices and offers to the gods. People also say that these two are the new-moon and the full-moon sacrifices. Therefore one should not offer sacrifice [merely] to secure a wish first both men and animals live upon milk. Therefore they either make a new-bom babe lick butter or put it to the breast. Likewise they call a new-born calf 'one that does not eat grass ' what does not ' — for upon milk everything depends, both what breathes and what does not. This that people say, cBy offering with milk for a year one escapes the second death ' — one should know that this is not so, since on the very day that he makes the offering he who knows escapes the second death, for he offers all his food to the gods. eaten all the time?' Verily, the Person is imperishableness, for he produces this food again and again. ' He who knows this imperishableness ' — verily, a person is imperishableness, for by continuous meditation he produces this food as his work. Should he not do this, all the food would perish. ( He eats food with his mouth (pratlkd)' The prattka is the mouth. So he eats food with his mouth.

(2) Separately, however, he forbade the most contemplative of philosophers, and who have arrived at the summit of philosophic attainments, the use of superfluous and unjust food, and ordered them never to eat any thing animated, nor in short, to drink wine, nor to sacrifice animals to the Gods, nor by any means to injure animals, but to preserve most solicitously justice towards them. And he himself lived after this manner, abstaining from animal food, and adoring altars undefiled with blood. He was likewise careful in preventing others from destroying animals that are of a kindred nature with us, and rather corrected and instructed savage animals through words and deeds, than injured them through punishment. And farther still, he also injoined those politicians that were legislators to abstain from animals.

For as they wished to act in the highest degree justly, it is certainly necessary that they should not injure any kindred animal. Since, how could they persuade others to act justly, if they themselves were detected in indulging an insatiable avidity by partaking of animals that are allied to us? For through the communion of life and the same elements, and the mixture subsisting from these, they are as it were conjoined to us by a fraternal alliance. He permitted, however, others whose life was not entirely purified, sacred and philosophic, to eat of certain animals; and for these he appointed a definite time of abstinence. These therefore, he ordered not to eat the heart , nor the brain ; and from the eating of these he entirely prohibited all the Pythagoreans.

For these parts are of a ruling nature, and are as it were certain ladders and seats of wisdom and life. But other things were considered by him as sacred on account of the nature of a divine reason. Thus he exhorted his disciples to abstain from mallows , because this plant is the first messenger and signal of the sympathy of celestial with terrestrial natures. Thus, too, he ordered them to abstain from the fish melanurus ; for it is sacred to the terrestrial Gods. And also not to receive the fish erythinus , through other such like causes. He likewise exhorted them to abstain from beans , on account of many sacred and physical causes, and also such causes as pertain to the soul. And he established as laws other precepts similar to these, beginning through nutriment to lead men to virtue.

(1) On the fifth of these nectars the Sâdhyas live, with Brahman at their head. True, the Devas do not eat or drink, but they enjoy by seeing the nectar.

(1) When the Father produced by intellect And austenty seven kinds of food, One of his [foods] was common to all, Of two he let the gods partake, Three he made for himself, One he bestowed upon the animals On this [food] everything depends, Both what breathes and what does not. How is it that these do not peiish When they are being eaten all the time He who knows this imperishableness— He eats food with his mouth (pratika), He goes to the gods, He lives on strength. Thus the verses.

(1) At that time Sariputra thought to himself: ‘ ‘ The meal time draws nigh; where should those Bodhisattvas take their meal?” Then Vimalakirti knowing his thought thus spoke to him: “The Eightfold Liberation is preached by Buddha and thou shouldst receive and practice it; why shouldst thou think of material food when thou desirest to hear the law ? But if thou wouldst eat, wait for a space, when I shall be able to obtain such food as thou hast never tasted before.”

(60) But those who from a hatred for the flesh ungratefully long.to have nothing to do with the marriage union and the eating of reasonable food, are both blockheads and atheists, and exercise an irrational chastity like the other heathen. For ex- ample, the Brahmans neither eat animal flesh nor drink wine. But some of them take food every way, as we do, while others do so only on every third day, as Alexander Polyhistor says in his Indian History. They despise deaths and reckon life of no account. For they are persuaded that there is a regeneration. The gods they worship are Heracles and Pan. And the Indians who are called Holy Men go naked throughout their entire life. They seek for the truth, and predict the future, and reverence a certain pyramid beneath which, they think, lie the bones of a certain god. Neither the Gymnosophists nor the so-called Holy Men have wives. They think sexual relations are unnatural and contrary to law. For this cause they keep themselves chaste. The Holy Women are also virgins. They observe, it seems, the heavenly bodies and from what they indicate foretell future events.

(20) Accordingly such food, in order to clear understanding, is to be rejected. Wherefore also the Egyptians, in the purifications practised among them, do not allow the priests to feed on flesh; but they use chickens, as lightest; and they do not touch fish, on account of certain fables, but especially on account of such food making the flesh flabby. But now terrestrial animals and birds breathe the same air as our vital spirits, being possessed of a vital principle cognate with the air. But it is said that fishes do not breathe this air, but that which was mixed with the water at the instant of its first creation, as well as with the rest of the elements, which is also a sign of the permanence of matter.

(1) 'Food (anna) is better than power. Therefore if a man abstain from food for ten days, though he live, he would be unable to see, hear, perceive, think, act, and understand. But when he obtains food, he is able to see, hear, perceive, think, act, and understand. Meditate on food.

(3) What people call fasting (anâsakâyana), that is really abstinence, for that Self does not perish (na nasyati), which we find out by abstinence. What people call a hermit's life (aranyâyana), that is really abstinence. Ara and Nya are two lakes in the world of Brahman, in the third heaven from hence; and there is the lake Airanimadîya, and the Asvattha tree, showering down Soma, and the city of Brahman (Hiranyagarbha) Aparâgitâ , and the golden Prabhuvimita (the hall built by Prabhu, Brahman). Now that world of Brahman belongs to those who find the lakes Ara and Nya in the world of Brahman by means of abstinence; for them there is freedom in all the worlds .

(2) Svetaketu abstained from food for fifteen days. Then he came to his father and said: 'What shall I say?' The father said: 'Repeat the Rik, Yagus, and Sâman verses.' He replied: 'They do not occur to me, Sir.'

(48) If, as they say, they have already attained the state of resurrection, and on this account reject marriage let them neither eat nor drink. For the apostle says that in the resurrection the belly and food shall be destroyed. Why then do they hunger and thirst and suffer the weaknesses of the flesh and all the other needs which will not affect the man who through Christ has attained to the hoped for resurrection? Furthermore those who worship idols abstain both from food and from sexual intercourse. "But the kingdom of God does not consist in eating and drinking," he says. And indeed the Magi make a point of abstaining from wine and the meat of animals and from sexual intercourse while they are worshipping angels and daemons. But just as humility consists in meekness and not in treating one's body roughly, so also continence is a virtue of the soul which is not manifest to others, but is in secret.

(22) Pythagoras declared that the eating of meat clouded the reasoning faculties. While he did not condemn its use or totally abstain therefrom himself, he declared that judges should refrain from eating meat before a trial, in order that those who appeared before them might receive the most honest and astute decisions. When Pythagoras decided (as he often did) to retire into the temple of God for an extended period of time to meditate and pray, he took with his supply of specially prepared food and drink. The food consisted of equal parts of the seeds of poppy and sesame, the skin of the sea onion from which the juice had been thoroughly extracted, the flower of daffodil, the leaves of mallows, and a paste of barley and peas. These he compounded together with the addition of wild honey. For a beverage he took the seeds of cucumbers, dried raisins (with seeds removed), the flowers of coriander, the seeds of mallows and purslane, scraped cheese, meal, and cream, mixed together and sweetened with wild honey. Pythagoras claimed that this was the diet of Hercules while wandering in the Libyan desert and was according to the formula given to that hero by the goddess Ceres herself.

(2) He said: 'What shall be my dress?' They answered: 'Water.' Therefore wise people, when they are going to eat food, surround their food before and after with water .' He (prâna) thus gains a dress, and is no longer naked '.

(4) Others, with regulated food, offer life-breaths in life-breaths. All these are knowers of sacrifice, whose sins are destroyed by sacrifice.

(4) 'From the months they go to the world of the fathers, from the world of the fathers to the ether, from the ether to the moon. That is Soma, the king. Here they are loved (eaten) by the Devas, yes, the Devas love (eat) them .

(8) They gave him food. Now these five (the eater Vâyu (air), and his food, Agni (fire), Âditya (sun), Kandramas (moon), Ap (water)) and the other five (the eater Prâna (breath), and his food, speech, sight, hearing, mind) make ten, and that is the Krita (the highest ) cast (representing the ten, the eaters and the food). Therefore in all quarters those ten are food (and) Krita (the highest cast). These are again the Virâg (of ten syllables) which eats the food. Through this all this becomes seen. He who knows this sees all this and becomes an eater of food, yea, he becomes an eater of food.

(372) in winter substantially clothed and shod. They will feed on barley-meal and flour of wheat, baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and loaves; these they will serve up on a mat of reeds or on clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds strewn with yew or myrtle. And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and hymning the praises of the gods, in happy converse with one another. And they will take care that their families do not exceed their means; having an eye to poverty or war. But, said Glaucon, interposing, you have not given them a relish to their meal. True, I replied, I had forgotten; of course they must have a relish—salt, and olives, and cheese, and they will boil roots and herbs such as country people prepare; for a dessert we shall give them figs, and peas, and beans; and they will roast myrtle-berries and acorns at the fire, drinking in moderation. And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them. Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts? But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied. Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off tables, and they should

(3) 'Learn from me, my son, what are hunger and thirst. When a man is thus said to be hungry, water is carrying away (digests) what has been eaten by him. Therefore as they speak of a cow-leader (go-nâya), a horse-leader (asva-nâya), a man-leader (purusha-nâya), so they call water (which digests food and causes hunger) food-leader (asa-nâya). Thus (by food digested &c.), my son, know this offshoot (the body) to be brought forth, for this (body) could not be without a root (cause).