A recipe from vegetarian cook Xiao Bai. [Photo/amazon.cn]

Not all about Buddhism: a retrospect of vegetarianism in China

Most Chinese people would be familiar with an ancient quotation from their high school textbook: "people who eat meat are shallow minded."

The saying is from Zuo Zhuan, the earliest annals in China. "People who eat meat" refers to the privileged that belong to high class, for only noble people were recorded to have the right to eat meat in ancient China for a certain period of time.

According to Book of Rites (Li Ji), a historical record written during the Zhou Dynasty (c.11th century-256 BC), the kind of meat people had was closely related to their social status. Only emperors could eat beef every day. Hereditary rulers and noblemen often had mutton and could enjoy some beef on the first day of each month of the Chinese lunar calendar. Most of the time, the common people only had meat-free meals.

However, the book also recorded that the nobles needed to stay away from meat when they were on a fast. When somebody died in the family, they went without meat during mourning.

After Buddhism came to China later in the Han Dynasty (202 BC-220 AD), there were no strict rules about monks' eating habit.

However, a Chinese emperor Xiao Yan from the Southern Dynasty (420-589) changed everything.

Having a strong faith in Buddhism, he even abdicated and tried to be a monk three times. He strongly promoted vegetarianism in Buddhist temples by issuing an order to force monks to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle, plus no alcohol.

There is no reliable record about if Xiao was a 100 percent vegetarian, yet he was one of the few Chinese emperors who had a very long life, passing away at age 86.

Thus vegetarian food was more common after monks began to lead a real simple life without meat and alcohol.