Buddhism is a
religious endemic that incorporates many beliefs, traditions and practices
which are thoroughly based on the teachings attributed to Lord Buddha,
originally named as Siddhartha Gautama. The religion was flourished in Indian
subcontinent by Lord Buddha in between 6th and 4th
century BCE. Buddha means ‘the awakening one’ in Sanskrit and is considered as
an awakening teacher by Buddhist who helped to end sufferings of the people by
eliminating disbelief and ignorance by understanding deep inner spirituality
and thus attaining happiness in terms of Nirvana.
Buddhism is a
world religion which arose in and around ancient ardent kingdom of Magadha. The
teachings of Buddha existed only in Oral traditions. Animal release is a term
or a practice used by the Chinese Buddhists which refers to purchasing of
animals (which are going to be slaughtered) and then letting them go free. The cogitation
behind this practice is the teaching of Lord Buddha of altruism, amiability and
kindness of humans to all the creatures of this world.
The holy
tradition of Animal Release (or even release of human beings) is one of the
most exquisite and famous ceremony of Buddhism throughout Asia and since last
two decades throughout worldwide also. The inference behind practicing of this
ardent ritual is the benevolence and generosity for the captive animals and
idea of freeing theses poor and needy animals into their natural habitat. The
main concept of this ritual is practicing compassion in one’s heart. There are
also some more concepts behind this ritual which are further described in brief
in this article.
History of Animal Release Ceremony –
The exact origin
of this covetous practice is not yet velar yet Chinese treatises like Yanshou
and the Wanshan tonggui ji written by the Sixth Patriarch of the Pure Land
tradition normally consider the great Fanwang jing and the Renwang huguo bore
boliomi jing as the main ardent scriptural sources of the fervent animal
release practice. The justification behind this zealous practice is considered
a truly a commiseration act emphasizing on the belief that all men are our
father and all women are our mothers and since every reincarnation takes from
them so all living beings should be considered our parents (whether human or
animals) and killing any one. So these beliefs inhibits killing of animals also
and to practice release of animals and also spread this awareness to cause
others to practice animal release also. Also if we see someone killing animals
we should save those animals by any means so as to protect those animals from
sufferings.
In addition to
these Chinese sources, there is also one more name that is considered to be
earlier source of animal release practice, the Suvar nabha sottanasu tra, the
Su tra of Golden Light. This is also claimed as an ardent source of animal
release practice because this claim is oftenly referred to in Chinese treatises
like the famous Fayuan Zhulin, the Pearl Grove of the Garden of Dharma, an
emotional story of a man, Jalava hana in the Su tra of the Golden Light. The
story revolves about a man, Jalava Hana, who carried water to a pond of
approximate 10.000 fish with the help of 20 elephants. The exact story is that
Jalava was a merchant’s son and while travelling through a forest in summer,
one day he came across a pond where fish were struggling for their survival in
the fast evaporating water. There were numerous animals surrounding the pond to
snap up the unfortunate fish.
Moved deeply by
munificence and kindness in his heart he first tries to shield the water of
pond from severe sun light but it went ineffective. Then he approached the king
and from the help of the king and by using king’s elephant, Jalava’s efforts
paid off and he was able to save those fish. The reason behind his this act of
deed was that the pond was deprived of sufficient water. Well so far most of
the Buddhist considered this story and the man Jalava hana the earlier practice
of animal release ceremony because Jalava’s deed truly incorporates compassion
and kindness for those fish by saving their lives from dying in the pond in
deprivation of enough water.
This passage
proves a big incidence of animal release practice which portrays the universal
message of protecting the lives of all living beings and to practice the ardent
principle of Non – Violence, Ahinsa. This concept normally gets confused with
the fact that animal release ceremony usually means releasing of captive but
the true message behind this practice is quite big which is also portrayed by
the deed of Jalava saving the pond fish from dying but yet not releasing them
or setting them free as the name of this practice implies. The original and
true message behind this animal release practice is to save and protects lives
of all living beings, humans and animals; by any mean whether it is by letting
the captives free or by any mean which is the call of necessity when the time
calls for. There is also one very famous
story entitled to this ritual which is used widely in Buddhism. According to
Vinaya, a Buddhist monk once came across a poor pig that was caught in a
hunter’s trap and the monk with his compassionate heart released the pig from
the trap. But the monk then was considered guilty of theft against the hunter’s
pleads. But when the matter was brought up to the Buddha’s knowledge, he said
for the Dharma point of view that the monk had not committed any offence
because he had acted out of kindness and compassion.
This exquisite
and amorous animal release practice further leads to certain cautions and
monastic codes that have now become mandatory for Buddhists. First one is to
not to hurt small insects while collecting water from rivers for usage or
getting wood from trees or anything else related to such incidences. Such
monastic codes are available in the Chinese translation the great and famous
the Sarya stiva din codes, the Genben saboduobu lushe, that instructs strictly
to the monks to use small fine cloths to use as filters for filtering small
insects from water while preserving the water into a container. Then further
release these small insects back into water with immense care and avoid hurting
these small insects by any mean.
Description of Animal Release Traditional
Practice –
Well there are
many reasons behind ardent practicing of animal release ceremony which includes
the belief of all human beings being equal, safety and protection of all living
beings, concern for the longevity of all living entities along with covetous idea
of practicing kindness and compassion for all yet there is also one more
explicit reason behind this practice which is the solid firm belief of Buddhism
in the ardent accumulation of merits for longevity and merits can be further
transferred to one’s beloved one even after death.
Further there is
not any pre texted and pre specified standard manual of practice of this
ritual. So due to this fact this ceremony varies in several areas. For example,
many great Tibetan masters like Mipham Gyatso and Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo have
written their own guidelines for their fervent followers to employ while
practicing animal release ritual. With all these variations yet the basic
thought and idea behind this practice still remains the same asking the
follower to visualized oneself as a particular deity and bless all the animals
being released. There is another ritual carried on while practicing this ceremony
which includes carrying out the animal around the ritual table at least for 40
times while other monks recite the holy prayers. This ritual of reciting the
prayers and carrying the animal around table for many times portrays the idea
of imprinting of holy teachings for their future safer life. In china, these
ceremonies are incorporated by the head monk only. The head monk then ardently
invites other Buddha monks to this gathering and then preaches impeccably the
doctrine of dependent origin and also the frequent laws of karma to the animals
while leading the crowd to take refuge in the three jewels on the behalf of
those animals.
This covetous
practice concludes with granting of these animals with two wishes – first one
being that after getting released they will be safe form hunters as well as
fishermen and secondly they are blessed to be reborn in their next lives as
human beings and thus getting rid of the incarnations of animal lives. They
will get human birth to perfect all the teaching and blessings they have heard
now and tread the Bodhisattva path amorously. After all these rituals’
completion, the participants then make a final wish for themselves also. This
final wish is that through such holy practices they will be able to make good
progress on the path towards Buddha hood. In the end the holy name of Buddha
Amita bha is recited a number of time before the entire holy practice is completed
with the dedication of amorous merits.
The type of
animals for animal release practice also varies as the variety of methods for
practicing this ceremony varies from area to area. The famous ones are birds,
fish, turtles and crabs and sometimes ants also. Well in modern practice the
most famous ones are turtles and fish. The reason behind this popularity is
that according to Chinese mythology, release of birds creates an immense and
impressive effect at the completion of the ritual where as for turtles the
reason is that the turtles in Chinese mythology symbolize longevity.
Modern Day Practices -
There is quite a
successive lack of sympathetic knowledge on modern day Buddhist animal release
practice. Well there are numerous factors for this deed. The biggest reason
being the lack of written knowledge available in scriptures and ancient books
over this fervent topic of animal release practice. Second reason is the fear
of “animal welfare organizations”. Well these organizations sometimes make an
issue out of this practice and this has happened in history number of times
especially in last two decades. This reason has also led to decrease in
practice of this ardent ritual. Third and most important is that with the
immense increase in technology and new thinking of our new generation, these
rituals are now considered a myth or an old practice by our new generation
which now mostly does not believe in this practice that much like pour
ancestors do. These all have summoned up and incorporated a lack of knowledge
as well as practice of this zealous ceremony now days.
This ritual has
brought about some ethical drawbacks with it. When a layman performs this
ritual, there is a demand for captivated animals to perform this ceremony and
this increasing demand leads to commercialization of this practice. Very
oftenly the free animals are caught and captivated to serve for the fulfillment
of this ritual so thus forgetting the original idea behind this ritual which was
to protect the needy but not to make someone first needy to protect them again
to fulfill this ceremony. The modern day practicing normally portrays the lack
of true knowledge of this ceremony’s reason among people.
Conclusion –
The animal
release practice is an inseparable and unavoidable part of Buddhism. But
further customized study of the exquisite and amorous practice of this ritual
is quite important to understand its potential implications within the old rich
culture and tradition worldwide and also for the potentially demonstrating its
importance for other fields also. But still the covetous and amorous messages
and ideas portrayed by this ardent and peaceful ritual needs to be incorporated
by entire world especially practicing compassion, kindness, benevolence and
generosity for all living entities. When these feelings are truly cultivated
and practiced by entire world, I don’t think there would be any war or crime or
massacre or even terrorism in this world but only love, respect and kindness
for each other in everyone’s hearts. May be this is the reason why Buddhism is
considered mostly as a ‘Pro – Environmental’ religion worldwide.
