VegHist Ep 11: Enlightenment. Colonial India, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Les Bardus
The philosophers of Paris discuss reports of Indian vegetarianism, question the morality of eating animals, and inspire radicals who preach vegetarianism from the barricades of the French revolution.
Episode 11: Enlightenment
Ian traces a winding path of vegetarian inspiration from the personal diary of an Indian vegetarian working for the French, to the darkest corner of British imperial propaganda, to the Enlightenment’s favourite Paris café, to a rural retreat that inspired a social revolution, and to the squares where citizens plotted a real one.
Play or download (61MB MP3 43min) (via iTunes) or read transcript
Read transcript of Ep 10: Revolution
Follow this link to hear the episode & read the show notes. Transcription by Amy Carpenter.
[Sound of birds]
Sherwin Everett:
This is an Indian flapshell turtle. And it was run over by a car.
Read More…VegHist Ep 10: Revolution. English civil war, diet gurus, and the poetry of Sensibility; with Tristram Stuart and Anita Guerrini; at the Ahmedabad Panjrapole
When printing lets ordinary people access a world of ideas, including Indian vegetarianism, some European radicals and diet gurus begin to oppose meat-eating.
Episode 10: Revolution
In England, the 1600s are a century of revolution. The artisans and yeomanry are picking up books – and the New Model Army is picking up pikes and muskets to turn the world upside down.
Ian meets Dr Ariel Hessayon, a lecturer in the radicals of the English Civil War at a Thameside pub that was there during the 1600s, to discover tabloid scares and firebrand sermons about people who ate only bread, and water and fruit.
In Ahmedabad, India, he visits the kind of animal hospital that astounded European travellers. And he hears from author Tristram Stuart about the impact stories of India had on Europeans, and how they shook Christendom’s moral certainty.
Dr Anita Guerrini researches the first vegetarian diet gurus, whose books about food and medicine interpreted the intellectuals of the Republic of Letters for everyone else. And she tells Ian about the secret religion of Sir Isaac Newton.
Play or download (62MB MP3 44min) (via iTunes) or read transcript
Read transcript of Ep 9: Renaissance
Alternatively, follow this link to hear the episode & read the show notes. Transcription by Amy Carpenter.
[A woman sings passionately in Italian, backed by a Renaissance orchestra. Continues in background]
Ian McDonald:
Prosperina, the Queen of Hades, is swayed by the singing of Orpheus and begs Hades to return his wife, in Monteverdi’s 1607 opera.
VegHist Ep 9: Renaissance. Descartes, Montaigne, Gassendi, and the “sparing diet”; with Jean-Charles Darmon, Deepak Kumar, and Justin Begley; in Paris, France
Ancient philosophers inspire Renaissance thinkers to challenge the old hierarchy of man over beast.
Episode 9: Renaissance
Old medieval certainties are cracking under the combined assault of new sciences and rediscovered classics. It’s an age when “natural philosophers” combine scientific discovery with philosophical treatises, and when their Republic of Letters transcends political boundaries in the name of free thought.
It’s the age of Descartes, whose mechanical philosophy dismisses animals as “automatons”. But rivals like Gassendi suggest that animals have more in common with humans than he thinks. Ian traces the trail from Paris to the Mughal Court and back to the medical schools of the Enlightenment. He discovers the forgotten story of how Christian mythology, early anatomy, classical thinkers, and Indian medicine came together in respected medical schools that taught students to prescribe a vegetable diet.
Play or download (61MB MP3 44min) (via iTunes) or read transcript.
Read transcript of Ep 8: Contacts
Follow this link to hear the episode & read the show notes. Transcription by Amy Carpenter.
[A group of men chant. A bell chimes.]
Ian [speaking over the chanting, which fades down]:
Jain evening prayers at Hutheesing temple, in Ahmedabad, the capital of Gujarat, north west India.
Read More…VegHist Ep 8: Contacts. Indian Sufism, Bhakti, Akbar, Portuguese Christianity, and Gaudiya Vaishnavism; with Sanjukta Gupta; in Agra, Delhi, and London
When conquerors who profess Islam or Christianity rule over Indian vegetarians, the conversations about food ethics go both ways.
Episode 8: Contacts
Ian discovers the ecstatic dancing and singing shared by Sufis and Hindus – including westerners singing Hare Krishna in London’s main shopping street. In Delhi, he finds out about the inquisition that started with European antisemitism and ended with Indians being forced to eat beef.
And in the royal city of Agra, he visits a shrine built to commemorate a conversation about religion and vegetarianism between a Jain saint and the Mughal emperor Akbar. He uncovers the fascinating story of this heretic emperor who advocated vegetarianism.
At the halfway point of this 15-part history of vegetarianism, the traditions of East and West come together. From hereon, it’s all one story.
Play or download (52MB MP3 37min) (via iTunes) or read transcript.
Read transcript of Ep 7: Heresies
Alternatively, follow this link to hear the episode & read the show notes. Transcription by Amy Carpenter.
[Buddhist chanting. Starting with musical percussion sounds – tapping and small cymbals. Then a Buddhist begins to chant, then a large group join in.]
VegHist Ep 7: Heresies. On Chinese Buddhists, Cathars, Bogomils, Islam, and Manichaeans; with Vincent Gooseart, John Arnold, Jason BeDuhn, and Ven. Chueh Yun; at the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Temple, in London
In the Middle Ages, three very different monastic orders spread from the Mediterranean to the South China Sea, surrounding themselves with lay believers and challenging the norm of meat-eating.
Episode 7: Heresies
A string of religious groups across medieval Eurasia shared one common belief: that this world was a terrible place; and to escape its cycle of rebirth and redeath you needed to be ordained into a pure life, abstaining from violence. They all have some level of abstention from flesh, up to and including a vegan diet. But they all face suspicion.
Discover why the “good men” of the Cathars and Bogomils eschewed sinful flesh, why the men and women of the Manichaean Elect followed a vegan diet, and how the monks and nuns of Buddhism were shamed by their layfolk. And how a vegetarian culture spread throughout east Asia.
Ian joins a Chinese Buddhist congregation in London for its full moon service. He discovers how Buddhism not only spread across China, but made vegetarianism part of Chinese culture. He discovers a war against pescetarian heretics in Europe, the medieval Chinese horror stories that encouraged kindness to animals, and visits his local Tofu maker.
Read transcript of Ep 6: Hinduism
Alternatively, follow this link to hear Ep 6: Hinduuism and read the show notes. Transcription by Amy Carpenter.
[Soft Indian music]
Ian McDonald:
So, the food is vegetarian.
Ranjan Garuva:
Yeah, pure vegetarian. Pure sacred food.