Know your roots - on the origins of veganism

[Second Summer]

I recently came across this article on the Vegan Society's website, which I thought was fairly interesting, and with plenty of links to explore further. It's written by Ian MacDonald, the producer of the radio series 'Vegetarianism: The story so far'.

As far as I know, the oldest object in the world to mention vegetarianism is an edict of the Indian Buddhist ruler Ashoka. It proclaims that the king abstains from beings who are ‘empsychos’ - translated ‘animate’ or ‘ensouled’. This the ancient Greek idiom for vegetarianism, and if you're wondering why an Indian royal edict is in Greek, then you're getting ahead of me. The edict itself is from the middle of the third century BC (and the first traces of anyone following that idiom through to its logical conclusion - veganism - lie in the future). [...]

More: Know your roots (2. Sept. 2016)