section_path: Religion and philosophy/Dharma/Animal welfare
section_name: Animal welfare
paragraph_text: Animal welfare
  
  Ashoka's rock edicts declare that injuring living things is not good, and no animal should be slaughtered for sacrifice. However, he did not prohibit common cattle slaughter or beef eating.
  
  He imposed a ban on killing of "all four-footed creatures that are neither useful nor edible", and of specific animal species including several birds, certain types of fish and bulls among others. He also banned killing of female goats, sheep and pigs that were nursing their young; as well as their young up to the age of six months. He also banned killing of all fish and castration of animals during certain periods such as Chaturmasa and Uposatha.
  
  Ashoka also abolished the imperial hunting of animals and restricted the slaying of animals for food in the imperial residence. Because he banned hunting, created many veterinary clinics and eliminated meat eating on many holidays, the Mauryan Empire under Ashoka has been described as "one of the very few instances in world history of a government treating its animals as citizens who are as deserving of its protection as the human residents".