THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF THE ETHICS OF NONINJURY TOWARD ALL BEINGSIN ANCIENT-INDIA

The principle of non-injury toward all living beings (ahimsa) in India was originally a rule restraining human interaction with the natural environment. I compare two discourses on the relationship between huma ns and the natural environment in ancient India: the discourse of the priestly sacrificial cult and the discourse of the renunciants. In the sacrificial cult, all living beings were conceptualized as food. The renunciants opposed this conception and favored the ethics of non-inju ry toward all beings (plants, animals, etc.), which meant that no livi ng being should be food for another. The first represented an ethics m odeled on the power that the eater has over the eaten while the second attempted to overturn this food chain ethics. he ethics of non-injury ascribed ultimate value to every individual living being.TA a critiqu e of the individualistic ethics of non-injury, a holistic ethics was d eveloped that prescribed the unselfish performance of one's duties for the sake of the functioning of the natural system. Vegetarianism beca me a popular adaptation of the ethics of non-injury. These dramatic ch anges in ethics in ancient India are suggestive for the possibility of dramatic changes in environmental ethics today.