Spnadmin ji,
Yes, what I heard was that he was once seen carrying venison into a market place and cooking and eating it. And I wonder if as you express, “Someone did and he did not refuse it”, that this is the basis for why some people conclude that Guru Nanak allowed killing for food? But unless there were other incidents in which this issue was addressed, I think that this is a wrong conclusion to draw.
His own words point to the fact of eating or not eating “flesh” and not to killing or not to killing an animal for food. It would have been unarguable had he said instead, “fools who wrangle over killing / not killing animals” or something to the effect. Besides, I’d expect that if the issue was about killing and not killing animals, there would have been many occasions, such as getting rid of pests, where this would have come up.
In my argument with the vegetarian, I have tried to show that there is no link between one person killing an animal and selling its meat and another person buying that meat. And I believe the same applies here as well.
If someone has killed something just to serve me and I know it, my eating that meat would be in effect condoning killing. (This is why I stopped going to sea food restaurants where they take the fish out from the fish tank and kill it to cook for you.) If I pick out a chicken, in a place where they have just killed them, then I am blameless, because my buying or not buying that chicken has no effect on their decision to do what they do.
Indeed if a friend has just hunted a rabbit and decided to offer it to me, it would be unkind of me not to accept it. And surely, I’d likely advise him against killing and tell him that I’d be happy with any food he gave me. This could make him realize that whatever the food, meat or vegetables, is not important, but attachment to the one and ending up having to take a life in order to consume it must surely be bad.
Perhaps Guru Nanak did similarly after being offered the deer saying, “Hey buddy, you know that I’m happy with simple food like kitcheree or daal and roti. So next time, don’t bother getting me anything special. But killing is no good friend, so try avoiding it.” Or maybe he didn’t, because in fact he bought it from some seller in another part of that same market. However I think that it is a big mistake to conclude from what has been recorded of the incident, that he in effect did condone killing.
But like I said, there may be other things that Guru Nanak said on other occasions which have formed the basis for why some people believe that according to him, it was alright to kill for food…..
