Not about vegetarianism. This thread has long been hijacked into becoming an Animals thread. I think the last posts on the actual topic of vegetarianism are at the bottom of the previous page.
On the heels of VaikuNTha Ekaadashi, to commemorate him as the dviShapha - as he is called in the relevant sahasranaamam - and as a celebration of the deep, outwardly 'interspecies'-looking, friendship between Sri Rama and Anjaneya (though Sri Rama merely gave the appearance of being human and Anjaneya similarly merely looked like a mortal monkey),
here mentioning two documentaries by the American Public Broadcasting Station on this greater theme:
1. "Nature: Odd Animal Couples"
About interspecies friendship between different non-human animals.
The documentary is not about humans and animals being friends, but about cases where one non-human animal is friends with another non-human animal of a different species.
And these friendships can be seen to be very fast and deep friendships indeed. Like the goat who looked after his blind horse pal until the end and then slowly died from the loss. (Within the past two years, saw the news advertising for a video of a cat who similarly served as the 'eyes' of its blind dog friend.) Another example given in this documentary is the curious case of a monogamous couple consisting of a male goose and female giant tortoise (don't ask - I can only speculate but can't begin to understand how they reached an understanding, but both seemed to have done just that).
The documentary admits that until recently (IIRC 2013 or so), western researchers never used the word "friendship" for animals, though an article by a western biologist reposted at the Rajeev2004 blog some years back showed that the Japanese - with their Shinto-infused mentality - had naturally already understood that relationships in the animal world included friendships and a sense of family too, just like they realised the individualism of individual animals.
The native Americans - who are a wellspring of profound insights and concepts - have the profound notion of "blood brothers" which they applied not just to worthy European settlers, but which had its significant foundation in human native Americans' interaction with the animals in their world. They viewed various animals as their brothers and friends, and individual animals as blood brothers, such as in cases where one had saved a person's life and so the person recognised this by sealing it with a brotherhood pact.
In fact, the profound native American notion of "blood brothers" is a concept that's very applicable to interspecies animal friendships too, IMO. Human native Americans perceived the animals of their homeland to be part of their world - a very real, always tangible and usually central part; not abstract, nor peripheral. It was not just the animals either, but trees and rocks and waters that formed the larger family of relationships/the living world as living family for native Americans. A lot like Shintos and even to some extent like Hindoos, though the deep view of brotherhood with animals and the living world is not as common in Hindu views when compared to how central such great perceptions were for native Americans and Shintos. (Though unmissable examples exist in Hindu religion too, like Rama+kin's relation to the Vanaras and Jaambavaan.)
<snip>
2. The 2nd PBS documentary is "Nature: Meet the Coywolf"
About the emergence in N America of a recent hybrid of western Coyote and eastern Wolf, with locus of origin (for the hybrid) in Canada's Algonquin forests. Their appearance seems to have been indirectly caused by human-attempted extinction of the wolves of N America's E Coast. The hybrid is surprisingly successful in areas of human congestion including major cities now, and the Coywolf's spread is anticipated in America's famous eastern citadels like New York and Chicago, where Coyote are already seen trying to make a life for themselves.
There are scenes of adult coywolves/wolves/coyotes and tiny pups (!), the sight of which was unbearable: such overwhelming beauty that I think I felt my heart crumble slowly to dust within me. [Oh what a short time that organ lasted; it only ever comes into existence at moments such as this and only to be decimated thereupon.] But like that dead British poet once observed, "a thing of beauty is a joy forever". And an abiding joy this vision granted. Despite trying to be serious, had to watch some segments numerous times, because I kept concentrating on the visuals of the magnificent animal - it must be sacred, it is so unspeakably beautiful and defies comprehension - that I kept missing the import of what the voiceover was trying to say.
Remember that N American hunter who was sent to kill a cattle-raiding wolf in the Mexican part of America? You know, the hunter who - because the air back then was still thick with the heathenism of the native Americans, and which heathenism therefore infused into him as it did into others - gradually was overcome with admiration and love for his incomprehensible Prey, and was converted into pleading for the conservation of Wolves and the wilderness instead? (Almost too late, btw: as irreparable damage had been done to wolves [and some other species] in N America; and they're still much disliked and often shot when they venture into America from the Canadian wilds. This is mirrored in how the hunter's wolf died of a broken heart shortly after the human captured it: the hunter had killed its wife/mate for life, and it was therefore but a matter of time for the he-wolf to die too. <- The documentary makes it clear that the wolf is thought to have died because of the loss of its dear wife.)
Speaking of wolves and native Americans and their heathenism, the "totem animal" concept is another profound view of native American heathenism. E Asians also have totem animals.
<snip>
This post was to recommend two documentaries produced by the American "PBS" channel:
1. "Nature: Odd Animal Couples"
About interspecies friendship between different non-human animals.
2. "Nature: Meet the Coywolf"
Complete with scenes featuring baby wolves/coyotes/coywolves. So incomprehensible is the animal's magnificent beauty and the adorableness of its pups, that you will melt, and only a puddle that was once you will be left.
![[Image: hug_zps1cb12615.png]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v130/indiaforum/hug_zps1cb12615.png)
(^ The image is made by a southern Hindoo following the tradition that Vishnu=Rama and all that that entails. So, *obviously*, such images are specifically not for anyone who holds - or ever held - any other opinions on the matter, or their descendants.)
On the heels of VaikuNTha Ekaadashi, to commemorate him as the dviShapha - as he is called in the relevant sahasranaamam - and as a celebration of the deep, outwardly 'interspecies'-looking, friendship between Sri Rama and Anjaneya (though Sri Rama merely gave the appearance of being human and Anjaneya similarly merely looked like a mortal monkey),
here mentioning two documentaries by the American Public Broadcasting Station on this greater theme:
1. "Nature: Odd Animal Couples"
About interspecies friendship between different non-human animals.
The documentary is not about humans and animals being friends, but about cases where one non-human animal is friends with another non-human animal of a different species.
And these friendships can be seen to be very fast and deep friendships indeed. Like the goat who looked after his blind horse pal until the end and then slowly died from the loss. (Within the past two years, saw the news advertising for a video of a cat who similarly served as the 'eyes' of its blind dog friend.) Another example given in this documentary is the curious case of a monogamous couple consisting of a male goose and female giant tortoise (don't ask - I can only speculate but can't begin to understand how they reached an understanding, but both seemed to have done just that).
The documentary admits that until recently (IIRC 2013 or so), western researchers never used the word "friendship" for animals, though an article by a western biologist reposted at the Rajeev2004 blog some years back showed that the Japanese - with their Shinto-infused mentality - had naturally already understood that relationships in the animal world included friendships and a sense of family too, just like they realised the individualism of individual animals.
The native Americans - who are a wellspring of profound insights and concepts - have the profound notion of "blood brothers" which they applied not just to worthy European settlers, but which had its significant foundation in human native Americans' interaction with the animals in their world. They viewed various animals as their brothers and friends, and individual animals as blood brothers, such as in cases where one had saved a person's life and so the person recognised this by sealing it with a brotherhood pact.
In fact, the profound native American notion of "blood brothers" is a concept that's very applicable to interspecies animal friendships too, IMO. Human native Americans perceived the animals of their homeland to be part of their world - a very real, always tangible and usually central part; not abstract, nor peripheral. It was not just the animals either, but trees and rocks and waters that formed the larger family of relationships/the living world as living family for native Americans. A lot like Shintos and even to some extent like Hindoos, though the deep view of brotherhood with animals and the living world is not as common in Hindu views when compared to how central such great perceptions were for native Americans and Shintos. (Though unmissable examples exist in Hindu religion too, like Rama+kin's relation to the Vanaras and Jaambavaan.)
<snip>
2. The 2nd PBS documentary is "Nature: Meet the Coywolf"
About the emergence in N America of a recent hybrid of western Coyote and eastern Wolf, with locus of origin (for the hybrid) in Canada's Algonquin forests. Their appearance seems to have been indirectly caused by human-attempted extinction of the wolves of N America's E Coast. The hybrid is surprisingly successful in areas of human congestion including major cities now, and the Coywolf's spread is anticipated in America's famous eastern citadels like New York and Chicago, where Coyote are already seen trying to make a life for themselves.
There are scenes of adult coywolves/wolves/coyotes and tiny pups (!), the sight of which was unbearable: such overwhelming beauty that I think I felt my heart crumble slowly to dust within me. [Oh what a short time that organ lasted; it only ever comes into existence at moments such as this and only to be decimated thereupon.] But like that dead British poet once observed, "a thing of beauty is a joy forever". And an abiding joy this vision granted. Despite trying to be serious, had to watch some segments numerous times, because I kept concentrating on the visuals of the magnificent animal - it must be sacred, it is so unspeakably beautiful and defies comprehension - that I kept missing the import of what the voiceover was trying to say.
Remember that N American hunter who was sent to kill a cattle-raiding wolf in the Mexican part of America? You know, the hunter who - because the air back then was still thick with the heathenism of the native Americans, and which heathenism therefore infused into him as it did into others - gradually was overcome with admiration and love for his incomprehensible Prey, and was converted into pleading for the conservation of Wolves and the wilderness instead? (Almost too late, btw: as irreparable damage had been done to wolves [and some other species] in N America; and they're still much disliked and often shot when they venture into America from the Canadian wilds. This is mirrored in how the hunter's wolf died of a broken heart shortly after the human captured it: the hunter had killed its wife/mate for life, and it was therefore but a matter of time for the he-wolf to die too. <- The documentary makes it clear that the wolf is thought to have died because of the loss of its dear wife.)
Speaking of wolves and native Americans and their heathenism, the "totem animal" concept is another profound view of native American heathenism. E Asians also have totem animals.
<snip>
This post was to recommend two documentaries produced by the American "PBS" channel:
1. "Nature: Odd Animal Couples"
About interspecies friendship between different non-human animals.
2. "Nature: Meet the Coywolf"
Complete with scenes featuring baby wolves/coyotes/coywolves. So incomprehensible is the animal's magnificent beauty and the adorableness of its pups, that you will melt, and only a puddle that was once you will be left.
(^ The image is made by a southern Hindoo following the tradition that Vishnu=Rama and all that that entails. So, *obviously*, such images are specifically not for anyone who holds - or ever held - any other opinions on the matter, or their descendants.)
Death to traitors.