It wasn't just ancient Chinese poets and Buddhists discussing the connection between eating animals and potential affects/results thereof, but even some of the oldest known Western Ancients.

An article on Ovid and Pythagoras in which the importance of abstaining from eating living beings is emphasized:

http://mathisencorollary.blogspot.co...ention-of.html

Nowadays, we STILL gamble and hatch bets that we aren't causing animal deaths by eating meat. Ovid quotes his teacher Pythagoras:

Earth is abundantly wealthy and freely provides you
her gentle sustenance, offered without any bloodshed
Further we are cautioned (bolding my own):

Meat is for beasts to feed on, yet not all
Are carnivores, for horses, sheep, and cattle
Subsist on grass, but those whose disposition
Is fierce and cruel, tigers, raging lions,
And bears and wolves delight in bloody feasting.
Oh, what a wicked thing it is for flesh
To be the tomb of flesh, for the body's craving
To fatten on the body of another,
For one live creature to continue living
Through one live creature's death.
Here we see commentary about not only the killing itself that must be done, but acting upon the very craving that leads to that killing [and subsequent eating].


This resembles a bit from the Lankavatara, where the Buddha simply illustrates the endless cycle:

"Mahamati, I see that from the beginningless time, because of the habit of meat eating and the greed for flavors of meats, living beings kill and hurt each others in never ending cycles, thus they are apart from sages and suffering from births and deaths."
Just as the Lankavatara mentions the meat-craving/eaters as being apart from sages, Ovid also alludes to a "Golden time" of purity where flesh-eating was not done:

The Cyclops Could do no worse!
Must you destroy another
To satiate your greedy-gutted cravings?
There was a time, the Golden Age, we call it,
Happy in fruits and herbs, when no men tainted
Their lips with blood, and birds went flying safely
Through air, and in the fields the rabbits wandered
In the same way Ovid quotes Pyathagoras' mention of meat-eating as defiling
"Mortals, refrain from defiling your bodies with sinful
feasting [of meat/animal],
we see a striking resemblance to parts of the Brahma Net Sutra, where it explains that intentional meat-eating is also a defiling offense.

Hence, if a Bodhisattva deliberately eats meat, he thereby violates this minor precept and commits defiling offense.