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Book Name: The Great Zen Master Ta HuiPrevious     Next
 

have eaten it say it is delicious.

There is not a single animal, bird, insect, which is not being eaten somewhere. It will create nausea in you -- what kind of people are these? But traditionally they have accepted it as right, and once something is accepted as right, it becomes right to that tradition, to those people. They simply laugh at you -- you are missing such beautiful food.

In ancient India, and even now in the South of India, the temples are nothing but whorehouses. It was a custom that everybody should donate his eldest daughter to God, but God is just a stone statue; the priest exploits the poor woman sexually, in the name of God. Then so many women start gathering in the temple, and rich people start coming to the temple. These women are called devadasis, servants of God, but their actual function is to attract the rich people to the temple. They function as religious prostitutes, and because of them the temple goes on becoming richer and richer.

You will be surprised to know that just a few days ago, in Bombay, a survey was made of the prostitutes. Thirty percent were found to be devadasis from the temples of South India, because if the priest finds someone beautiful enough, then it is better to sell her in the Bombay market rather than keep her in the temple. That way the priest can get a lump sum of money. Thirty percent of the prostitutes that were offered to God had reached the market of the prostitutes in Bombay. And no Hindu has objected to it -- not even today. The government takes no notice. It continues because nobody wants to irritate anybody, nobody wants to annoy anybody. Everybody is trying to look good in other people's eyes.

Millions of women in this country have been burned alive! They had to die with their husbands; they had to jump onto the funeral pyre with the dead husband. That was called the tradition of suttee. Those women who managed this suicide -- a very painful suicide -- were called great women, very religious women.

But the real idea behind it was not religious; there was nothing good in it. The real idea behind it was that the man does not want that his wife, when he is dead... who knows?

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