I assumed that the Buddha was a vegetarian (at least in early life) because he belonged to a high caste and then pursued Hindu (or the contemporary equivalent) asceticism. I know there was the business about accepting "coarse food" "both hard and soft" and then contemplating the caste and "dietary" of each of his former lives. But again, I assumed that referred to Gotama's gradual assumption of a high (and presumably vegetarian) caste. I guess it makes sense that he should accept the foods of a lower caste as a part of purging himself of both worldliness and rank.
It also seems to me that vegetarianism has, historically, been an ostentation. Hunter-gatherers were "barbarian". The lowest, largely captive social ranks were largely vegetarian only because they had no herds and were prevented from gathering game. The lowest free ranks depended on undesirable game, had small gardens and mainly subsisted on part of the crops they gathered. Higher castes had herds or worked with herds and thus had meat and merchants had meat. The warrior ranks had both herds and game but only the very highest ranks could extract a well-balanced diet from their large gardens (and the gardens of others and imports) and expensive (in time and effort at least) vegetable foods.
The history is more interesting to me than the religion.
boddi
On 12/13/05, The 30 Pound Snail Who Lives on Gar Lipow's Monitor
<the.typo.boy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/13/05, boddi satva <lbo.boddi at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The Buddha (that's korean spareribs off the menu)
>
> Not neccesarily. Buddha died of eating a bad ... something.
> Normally it is translated as "mushroom". But it is often argued that
> it was pork. (There is evidence to support both view points.) And in
> fact, quite seperate from this question, there was a great deal of
> evidence that early Buddhists were NOT vegetarians:
>
> The following link is a decent discussion:
>
> http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-MEL/waley.htm
>
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