Thirukkural- On Virtue- Avoidance Of Meat-Eating-Kural-260

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Those who refrain from killing animals, and abstain from eating its flesh,Will receive worship with folded hands from all creatures of this world.

The adoration of a grateful people and all creatures will be as remarkable as that given to God himself and this adoration will be directed to the man who does not kill or eat animal flesh.

In his book, Ethics of India, American author E W Hopkins says:

'There is in India a doctrine called non-injury which in some regards, transcends any ethical teaching to be found in Christianity as known in America. It is the gentle doctrine of harmlessness, which more than covers the precepts of the catechism, not to hurt anybody by word or deed, for it means that it is a sin, and a sin far worse than lying or stealing, needlessly to maim or kill any living creature'. Hopkins considered this a comprehensive ethical principle, of which just one aspect is the objective behind the Society for prevention of Cruelty to Animals in the modern context.

Again in his book, 'civilization and ethics', Albert Schweitzer himself says, 'A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help, all life which he is able to assist, and shrink from injuring anything that lives. He does not ask, how far this or that life deserves one's sympathy as being valuable, nor beyond that, whether and to what degree it is capable of feeling. Life as such is sacred to him. He tears no leaf from a tree, plucks no flower and takes care to crush no insect'. In fact the expression 'Reverence for Life' coined by Schweitzer, covers all of this philosophy.