Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: ... Would a Vedic king try to prohibit the fifth-class men from eating the animals?
Prabhupāda: No. Animals, you can eat if you like. But there was no slaughterhouse. If you like, you can kill your own animal and eat. That was open. But the state did not maintain any slaughterhouse. And the third-class, fourth-class men, they would eat. So simply by saying that "You don't eat," they will not accept that. They're free, but the state would not maintain the slaughterhouse. At the present moment also, if the slaughterhouse are closed, then immediately seventy-five-percent meat-eating will be stopped. They maintain slaughterhouse. That is the most sinful activity.
(Morning Walk -- April 6, 1975, Māyāpur)
Comments
Thank you Ananta Sesa Prabhu-ji for the expansion of the theme.
Of course Krsna devotees are all Krsnatarian, there is no unneccessary suffering of the equal souls encaged currently as animals etc. Vaisnava wont even wish to tread on an ant. But, if the karmis etc are foolish, they can kill and eat, but they will go to heck for that, its a fact. Cows should never be killed, it is foolish as well as cruel. It is eating one's Mother.
"And the third-class, fourth-class men, they would eat. So simply by saying that "You don't eat," they will not accept that. They're free, but the state would not maintain the slaughterhouse. At the present moment also, if the slaughterhouse are closed, then immediately seventy-five-percent meat-eating will be stopped. They maintain slaughterhouse. That is the most sinful activity."
Hare Krsna! AGTSP !