Loose Thoughts on the Vegetarian Spectrum

The Trang vegetarian festival

The provincial town of Trang in southern Siam is known, amongst other things, for the vegetarian festival observed by the region's Chinese population during a full-moon every October. The festival is Taoist in origin but now includes many Boodhist appropriations. It is said that the Chinese, who came to the Malay peninsula for tin mining, temporarily lapsed from their ancestral customs and that, because of this, a visiting opera troupe was stricken by disease. To make amends, the Taoist priests instituted a nine day period of purification featuring abstinence from meat-eating as recompense - the disease was allayed, the opera singers healed and the period of abstinence has been observed ever since. The rules of purification are: those participating wear white garments for purity for the duration of the festival, they abstain from meat, animal foods and the pungent vegetables (onions, shallots, garlic and tobacco). 

The present author has encountered vegetarian customs throughout his recent travels through Hindoostan and Farther India, and his most recent sojourn in Trang has brought many matters concerning the whole spectrum of vegetarian practices, east/west, traditional and modern into focus. The following are some loose - which is to say unedited and unarranged - thoughts on the topic, along with relevant scattered observations from his travels. The main point to be made, however, is this:

Throughout the Asian traditions (and there is no reason to think occidental traditions would be any different) vegetarianism is, first and foremost, a purification and specifically a purification of the life force (chi, etc.) as manifest in the breath (spiritus, pneuma). This is why in vegetarian traditions abstinence from meat eating very often goes hand in hand with abstinence from onions and other pungent vegetables. The breath is the life force of the organism. Onions, garlic, tobacco etc. stain the breath and are therefore believed to impair the life force. 

Similarly, meat-eating causes bad breath as well. Meat is therefore believed to be polluting. Purification consists of abstaining from all things that stain the breath. This is the whole basis of vegetarianism in traditional oriental culture. It has very little to do with 'compassion to sentient beings' and similar constructions typical of Boodhist modernism and neo-Hindooism. On the contrary, throughout these traditions - let us call them the 'dharma' traditions, Hindooism, Jainism, Boodhism and so on - animals are universally regarded as 'failed human beings' and one abstains from eating them so as to not be dragged down to their level. Animals are inferior and unclean. Eating meat is an impurity. One abstains from meat-eating not out of love for animals but out of a horror for the lowness of the animal state. 

Accordingly, traditional vegetarianism has a completely different foundation and motivation than modern, Western vegetarianism, and the real basis of the traditional doctrine - purification of the life force - is forgotten in the West.

* * * 

Rubens - Pythagoras proclaiming vegetarianism

Some meditations on the vegetarian spectrum:

*In most eastern traditions, and elsewhere, vegetarianism is rarely a 'lifestyle' but is only practiced at certain times for the purposes of prufication.

*Even where Indians advertise ‘Pure Veg’ you might often find fish on the menu. This is especially the case in places like West Bengal and Kerala. Many Hindoos do not regard fish as animal flesh. The present author was told with confidence on several occasions that “there is no karma attached to fish” – the Hindoo piscatarian. Note that eating fish (and other white meats) does not stain the breath like eating red meat and accordingly fish and white meats are often exempt from traditional vegetarian strictures.

*Even where the Boodhists of Siam – a kingdom where a good 95% of citizens count themselves Theravadan Boodhists – proclaim themselves ‘vegetarian’, everything is nevertheless soaked in fish sauce.

*The traditional Japanese had no word for ‘vegetarian’ – it is an English loan word. This is despite there being a genuine vegetarian tradition in Zen Temple cuisine. Again, vegetarianism is a seasonal practice, not a 'lifestyle' or an identity. 

The Zen Temple Cuisine, especially as preserved in Kyoto

*Outside of Jainism, the oldest form of vegetarianism in the Hindoo world seems to come from Udupi. Thus 'Udupi' restaurants are found throughout India. It is further adapted in the diet of the Hare Krishna and related movements and is spiritually anchored in the incarnationist spirituality of Vishnoo. Avoiding the 'pungent vegetables' is as important as avoiding meat. 

*The idea that the 'pungent vegetables' and meat are to be avoided because they 'stir the passions' is a moralistic rationale. The real basis for such practices, however, lies in alchemistic vitalism (which is much older than such moral explanations and is now largely obscured or forgotten.) 

*In certain parts, the sign ‘Pure Veg’ outside a restaurant or street stall in India might often mean specifically “Muslims not welcome!” In the Indian context – and in general - Mohammedans are meat-eaters by definition. Quite apart from more mature considerations, contemporary Hindoos will eat vegetarian (or some version thereof) in order to distinguish themselves from the Musselmans, and the Musselmans will eat meat (in copious quantities!) in order to distinguish themselves from the Hindoos.

*In the Hindoo spectrum you meet many people for whom ‘vegetarian’ just means ‘no beef’. So you can find ‘Pure Veg’ eateries that serve chicken and fish. For the average Hindoo beef-eating is the great dietary sin that incurs karmic retribution. Thus many eateries specify ‘No beef’ on the menu. Again, note that red meat impairs the breath to a far greater degree than does fish or white meats.

*In deference to the Hindoo, of all the creatures it is an affront to slaughter for meat, it is surely the cow, the most serene and most beautiful of animals, emblem of the contemplative soul.

*Forms of vegetarianism found through Hindoostan and nearby are often not especially diverse or healthy. Meals will often consist of over-spiced lentil dishes (dal) and rice or bread, with vegetables, as such, conspicuously absent. The most common ‘vegetable’ is aloo (potato) and sometimes a wrinkled up old gobi (cauliflower) but there are few, if any, green vegetables in sight. Fresh leafy green vegetables are rarely seen at all. Carrots are commonly eaten as a sugared dessert (halva) in season. The contemporary Indian ‘vegetarian’ diet is surprisingly degraded, notably by sugar and potatoes and a dependence on spices rather than substance to provide satisfaction.

*The Hindoo knows absolutely nothing about salad. (Something called a 'green salad' appears on menus throughout India. Do not be fooled! It's not green and it is not a salad.)

*The Chinese culinary tradition (and variations thereof found throughout Sino-Asiatic civilization) is essentially omnivorous – albeit without dairy foods - but its ancient roots are better preserved than that of the Indian tradition and it is more easily adapted to a satisfying vegetarianism and especially a viable veganism in a modern context.

*Important to note: One of the lost keys to ancient ‘vegetarianism’ is a deep cultural abhorrence of cannibalism. In the first instance, meats that taste like human flesh are made taboo. Thus in Japan, for instance, eating monkey flesh was made subject to the death penalty, and in the Semitic order swine flesh was forbidden. (Noting that the instinct to avoid the cannibalistic was less developed in the Chinese world, in itself a spiritual failing of that civilization, although it remains more ‘primordial’ in other respects.)

*As Roger Sandall observes, the deconstruction of the ‘cannibalism narrative’ by the post-colonial counter-tradition is the cornerstone of the new barbarism, the anthropological toxin of our age. we have almost completely lost all understanding of this great theme of tradition now.

*Regardless of what certain New Age manifestations of Soofism propose, a legitimate vegetarianism is a theological impossibility in Islam. The sacrificial order of Abrahamism prevails among the Mohammadans. Islam very specifically does not end the institution of animal sacrifice. There is no way around this fact. Muslims are theologically bound to partake of the sacrifice at least once a year (on the Eid). Christianity, on the other hand, has abolished all sacrifices (or subsumed them in the sacrificial flesh of Christ – noting the primordial cannibalistic theme inherent in the Christian perspective) – Christians are free to be vegetarians, or indeed omnivores, so long as they eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ. A Christian vegetarianism is a legitimate spiritual possibility, but in that it has no distinct merit.

*Vestiges of the ‘primordiality’ of a vegetarianism scaled according to an abhorrence of cannibalism is found today in the so-called ‘macrobiotic’ cuisine as reformulated in a modern guise by the Japanese alchemist George Ohsawa. Thus the flesh of mammals and higher order animals is avoided but those lower on the evolutionary scale (fish, shrimp, moluscs etc.) might be eaten sometimes. The less an animal tastes like human flesh – which is to say the further it is from the human on the evolutionary scale – the better.

*In all religious traditions the avoidance of animal foods is associated with a spiritual vocation; it is priestly. In traditional cultures it is never a question of ‘ethics’ and even less of ‘ecology’ or some sort of smug political stance. What modern Westerners rarely appreciate is that a vegetarian (or vegan) diet without spiritual application can be destructive and the cause of psychological and other imbalances. That is, a secular vegetarianism is a nonsense, an aberration, a usurpation, a spiritual danger.

*Vegetarianism is often supposed to be alien to the occident, an oriental affectation, but let us recall that it was a feature of the Pythagorean tradition, and to an extent the broader Platonic tradition too, since ancient times. It is as natural to the West as Pythagoras and Plato.

*Although adored by countless simpering vegetarians and vegans in the West, His Holiness the Dalai Lama – that sanctimonious old phony – is a bad-breathed carnivore. He claims it is “on doctor’s orders.” Sure. (In all fairness, though, the entire Tibetan Boodhist tradition, of which this celebrity Lama is erstwhile leader, is resoundingly carnivorous , which makes the fact that most Western followers of Tibetan Boodhism are vegetarians all the more bizarre. The modern Western cult of Tibetan Boodhism is a strange phenomenon indeed!)

*Aside from vitalism, the whole metaphysical basis for oriental vegetarianism is dharma and hence reincarnation. (This is also true of occidental Pythagorean vegetarianism which has no other basis than metempsychosis.) Without such a metaphysical underpinning it is merely ‘ethical’ and sentimental. In general, if you do not believe in reincarnation/metempsychosis there is not likely to be a firm (deep) basis for your vegetarianism.

*The critique of vegetarianism that begins… “Science has shown that plants are sentient too…” is an instance of a corrosive scientistic relativism. It is increasingly common and we can expect more of it in the future as relativist deconstructions dismantle all reasonable norms in the decadent West. There is a clear and obvious difference between a plant and an animal; it is an abdication of reason and a sinister mischievousness to suppose otherwise.

*While we today associate a vegetable diet with health, in the past, in both east and west, meat was regarded as remedial. If you became ill you ate meat in order to get well. (The idea persists, especially among Jews, in the proverbial remedial powers of ‘chicken soup’.) There are amusing stories from the Middle Ages in whole communities of monks would regularly feign illness in order to get a feed of meat. This might seem contrary to concerns of purifying the vital force (breathe) but it is a question of animal energies. In such cases, one eats meat until one has recovered and then returns to a vegetable basis diet. We should not confuse animal 'health' with ethereal 'purity'.

*A lacto-vegetarianism arises naturally from the Hindoo world. Veganism is more natural to the Sino-Asiatic universe. The Hindoo diet has paneer. The Chinese diet has the soy bean. Milk is alien to the Chinaman. Soy is alien to the Hindoo. These differences are not accidental; they reflect profound differences in spiritual temperament and go very deep. A lacto-vegetarian will have a more Indo-Asiatic temperament, a vegan a more Sino-Asiatic temperament. We might generalize: a lacto-vegetarian will do yoga; a vegan will do tai chi. 

*The compromised 'objectivity' of science in the West - and especially in universities - is on display in the ridiculous reports that seem incapable of conceiving of a viable diet without meat and dairy foods. People are right to hold these judgments in contempt. These scientists only serve the meat and dairy industries - as if the Indian and Chinese civilizations were deficient for their vegetarianism and lack of dairy foods respectively. Western food science, so-called, is Eurocentric in the narrowest possible sense.

*Whatever merit might be attached to it the popular New Age vegetarianism of urban elites, social justice warriors and eco-spiritualists in the West is deeply sentimental and decadent. It is symptomatic of cultural collapse. Its motives are perverse and its manifestations cultish. We cannot overlook the fact that so many vegetarians are dissipated social degenerates. There is an honesty, a sincerity, a simplicity, an integrity, a wholesome attachment to tradition and history, a truthful aversion to fads of cultural vandalism, in the confirmed meat eater. Apart from our notes on Pythagoreanism above, occidental man is essentially and temperamentally a hunter.

*It requires a particularly vulgar insensitivity to not be appalled and disturbed by utilitarian industrial meat production. In no other age has the slaughter of animals for meat – on such a massive scale – ever been conducted without a sense of moral danger and a corresponding need to avoid Divine judgment for such a transgression. Factory farming is clearly an abomination. So secular vegetarianism on ‘ethical’ grounds is understandable in the first instance, but otherwise it fails to meet the depths of the case; it does nothing to appease Heaven and so is finally just self-righteous and narcissistic.

*Industrial halal meat production - where an imam says a quick 'bismillah' before pressing the 'on button' of massive assembly-line slaughter machines - is an especially obscene hypocrisy. The obsession with 'halal' meat among contemporary Mohammedans - absurdly Pharisaic - is one of the most advanced symptoms of spiritual decay in contemporary Islamic externalism. 

Vegetarians in white during the nine days and nights of the festival in Trang. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

The Temple Painter of Trang

The provincial city of Trang in southern Siam is used by a few tourists as a brief stop over on the way to such over-priced and over-rated locations as Phuket but is otherwise largely unknown to Western travelers. The present author arrived there a few days ago after journeying into the Kingdom by boat and by another short journey inland, but rather than using the city as a bus hub he has decided to camp there and explore for a while. The main reason for this is that, like George Town where he had stayed earlier, Trang has a large population of Straits Chinese and a strong Chinese culture; it is another instance where the local culture – in this case Thai rather than Malay – has been greatly enhanced by the admixture and influence of settlers from southern China. In the case of Trang the Chinese went to there to work in tin mines and have remained and intermarried. In general, the Chinese in Siam are well-integrated; the resulting Chinese-Siamese hybrid culture is rich and colorful, peaceful, clean, productive, industrious, cordial, relaxed, and with an excellent cuisine. 

* * * 

Just a few miles walk from the centre of Trang is a large Boodhist temple on a hill boasting a statue of the Boddhisatva Guanyin, the goddess of mercy. (Her prevalence in Asian spiritual life was the subject of a previous post, here.) It stands as a beacon over the city and so is an obvious place for a newcomer to investigate. After climbing a steep series of broken steps, however, you will discover that the temple is in advanced disrepair – in fact, abandoned. The author was greeted not by monks in prayer but by two cleaners – a man and a woman – who, rather than sweeping with their brooms, were happily groping and fondling each other somewhat immoderately in the shade of the temple walls. The goddess stood golden and merciful at the summit all the same, identifiable from her iconographical pitcher of water and her twig of willow, but everything else about the temple – a modern rather than traditional construction - is in ruin. It is a very odd structure. Evidently based on the architecturally ill-conceived idea of a giant cement-fabricated lotus pad it is a maze of circular forms, winding stairs and empty conference rooms, all of which is now crumbling and streaked with water stains, a dilapidated, melancholy monument to modern Boodhist decay. See:

* * * 

In the forest area below this temple, though, is another structure also dedicated to the great goddess of mercy, a small Chinese temple consisting of two simple buildings. See here:

If the Boodhist modernist monstrosity on the hill is disappointing, this traditional and modest Chinese temple is a hidden treasure. It is so inconspicuous that it does not even appear on google maps, nor on the otherwise infotmative local map of must-see temples and tourist spots entitled 'Prestiguous Merit Making'. This small temple is sheltered in concave landforms and overgrown forest and is accessed by an obscure pathway from the monastery at the foot of the larger temple. English-speaking locals could report little of it, except to say that it is a "joss house" - one of many in Trang - and that it is kept by the old Chinaman who is responsible for its paintings and iconography. 

The author found this old Chinaman on top of a small pagoda in the front of the temple, putting finishing touches to the enamel designs on the pagoda roof. Other than a few children playing near the caves at the back, he was the only person around. Here he is: 

He speaks very little English, for which he apologises, but in one way or another is able to communicate a few salient points about his temple. "Chinese temple!" he says - by which he means "as opposed to Thai." And as for how long he has been there painting he just says, "Long time." He is perhaps in his sixties or seventies - it is hard to tell and impolite to inquire. 

In any case, he has clearly been painting over the walls and fixtures of this temple from little tins of enamel for many years, and just as clearly it is a labour of dedication and love. The afternoon sun is very hot. He is perched on the pagoda roof protected only by a coolie hat. He is manifestly proud of his temple and very happy that a traveller would be bothered to step off the beaten path to see it. 

Although modest from the outside, the interior is a carnival of Chinese vermillion adorned with dozens of scenes from mythology and other paintings. It is all done in the same bright glossy enamels with which he is now painting the highlights of the padoga roof.  

The iconography of the temple is standard, and much of it can be seen in similar "joss houses", but the endearing feature of the temple is the somewhat naif mode of the painting. The artist is not idiosyncratic; he follows the canonical iconography, but he is - so it would seem, anyway - self-taught, or at least not a professional. The colours are bright and strong. The lines are intense and heavy. The medium is modern industrial enamels applied thick and without much subtlety. It is not a polished temple like others, but it has beauty and simplicity and power. Here is one of the door guardians:

  

Here are some panels showing Guanyin as one of the immortals:

Some scenes depict stories from the famous novel of Wu Chengen, Journey to the West - the story of 'Monkey' and Tripitaka who has been tasked by goddess Guanyin to journey from China to India to fetch the sacred scriptures:

As well as these familiar mythological depictions, there are also a number of panels near the front portal that seem to depict modern scenes of mining. The author surmises - though he might be wrong since it is a matter he was not able to clarify in the brief conversations with the old painter - that they concern the history and hardship of the Chinese tin miners who travelled from southern China to settle in the Trang region of the Siamese Kingdom in the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries. They are more cartoonish than the panels based on established iconography, presumably because the painter was creating scenes from his imagination:

The real delight of this temple, and this painter's work, however, is in the incidental depictions of birds and animals and flowers and fruit that fill the gaps between the formal panel paintings and that adorn the pillars and lintels thereabouts. These are really quite wonderful little nature studies - all in enamel - that are often signed and dated in both traditional Chinese dating and in the dating of the common (Western) calendar. Examples can be found below. As readers can see for themselves, the paintings of birds are especially successful:

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Square Seal Calligraphy - Chinese and Kufic

A Chinese calligraphy in the block square seal style

Several posts ago we noted the central place of the octagon in Chinese design. (See here.) It was mentioned there, but only in passing, that the same geometrical figure occurs throughout Islamic designs. This current post explores the matter of common elements in Chinese/Islamic design more thoroughly based, once again, upon observations made during travels through the Sino-Asiatic world. The consonances, similarities and parallels between these two very different traditions only become obvious when you see them first-hand. 

* * *  

We tend to experience the world nowadays through abstract media – web logs included - rather than through concrete realities. A key component in this is the so-called ‘research’ undertaken by teams of academics in universities. The world has never been so ‘researched’ and the ‘research’ has never been so tainted by the zeitgeist of the era. The truth is that the world is being ‘researched’ to death. The stream of ‘research’ papers and books is unending, along with theories and counter-theories, and then documentaries and videos and conferences and lecture tours. Very little of it amounts to very much of substance. Most of it concerns ‘deconstructing’ a supposedly evil past. The present author grew weary of all of that and has set out instead upon a journey through two continents and a dozen countries, travelling cheap, leaving theories and conferences behind and observing, as they say, the ‘facts on the ground’, the smells and tastes and textures of the world. The abstractions of the academic life are nebulous and neurotic; there comes a time when it is necessary to put some concrete foundations under the castles in the air.

Certain things become plain when you see them in reality rather than through the medium of books or academic studies. Among the neo-orientalist preoccupations of the author is the historical and on-going encounter between the Mohammadans and the Chinese. This is one of the key themes of the second leg of his sojourn in Asia and accounts for his current trajectory – albeit gradual - overland towards the old silk road. First, though, he has spent time in the Prince of Wales Island, or Pe Nang, where the Malay Muslims live side by side with a very old and illustrious colony of Han Chinese. The two cultures overlap and sometimes clash, but generally they yield to a constructive co-existence. You can read about these Islamic/Chinese encounters, but to witness them first-hand brings an entirely different sense to them. Academic studies pose as objective, but it is an objectivity in service to certain agenda. It is good to put that aside and to see the realities from the street-level.

In this context, the author was able to see numerous examples of two calligraphic traditions – one Islamic and the other Chinese – that, very obviously, and regardless of what academic obfuscators might say, are related. He had read of such before in erudite studies, but encountering it first hand rendered the parallels plain and palpable. Academics quibble over the historical connections, and there is always some deconstructionist professor out to deny the obvious, but there can be little question that the two traditions have, at some point, cross-fertilized. On the one hand we have the so-called ‘Kufic’ style of Arabic calligraphy, named after the city of Kufa, a city at the far end of the silk road. And on the other we have Chinese calligraphies which have developed from the very ancient tradition of block seals by which the Chinese have long signed documents and other official accounts. Related to this, we can also observe the tradition of Islamic geometrical patterning on the one hand, and the tradition of Chinese geometrical screen patterns and latticework on the other. The same or a similar genius seems to work in each of these traditions, regardless of how remote they might be in time and space. They are related, and point to the common ground where the Mohammadan tradition and the Chinese tradition meet.
Some examples:

Here is a typical Kufic Arabic design:

The cursive exuberance of the Arabic script has been tamed and confined into geometrical shapes used to fill the rectilinear space. The very same design strategy is used in certain Chinese calligraphies, such as these which the author photographed at the Western & Oriental Hotel in George Town:

Here the Chinese characters for wisdom and wealth are stylized into a rectilinear geometry. The similarities with the Kufic style known to the Mohammadans should be plain. Some other examples from an old temple gate in George Town:

It is not until seeing these two traditions side by side in situ that their common foundations can be fully appreciated. The Mohammadan and Chinese universes are assuredly very different - the Malays and the Chinese are assuredly very different peoples with starkly different sociologies - and yet there is a deep substrata of common foundations. The present author knows of no academic studies that penetrate that substrata in any meaningful way. 

The history that shaped this common foundation is uncertain, although it seems likely that the Chinese tradition was primary and the Arabic tradition derivative. The roots of Chinese block calligraphy are very ancient. The geometrical style developed from the need to adapt Chinese characters to block seals and stamps for official purposes:

It seems likely that this geometrical style of script then travelled the silk routes from the Far East into Mesopotamia where, for whatever reason, it found a home in the calligraphic schools of Kufa. That is, the Arabs learnt this style from the Chinese, just as they did such technologies as silk-making, with the silk road through Central Asia the connecting historical link. The extent of this debt to the Chinese, which is to say the extent to which Islam absorbed Chinese influences, is rarely appreciated. Academics in an age of deconstruction dwell on differences and downplay similarities. Yet the similarities are what are of interest here: not merely the fact of similar artistic conventions but, more importantly, similar mentalities and mind-sets. In both the Chinese and the Muslims we find a certain sense of the geometric, a Platonic sense of the geometric underpinnings of the dynamic cosmos. In both cases this is expressed via a sacred calligraphy in which world-as-text is implicit. 

Below are some photographs of Chinese geometric seals from a temple in George Town:

Anyone familiar with classical Mohammadan design will see the similarity between these Chinese seals and corresponding designs found throughout the Middle East. But it is not just a matter of historical appropriation and 'influence' - quantifiable 'influences' are a matter of academic 'research'; it is more a matter of a common intellectual core, remarkable because to every outward appearance the Chinese and Mohammadan temperaments and world-views seem so very different or even at odds. At a certain level, then - quite aside from historical encounters on the silk road - the Chinese and Mohammadan traditions meet. 

Regarding the broader question of the sense of the geometric and a shared mentality, consider also the tradition of Chinese lattice designs. Here again we are clearly in a similar intellectual domain to that which created the great heritage of Islamic geometric patterns. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black