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The Myth of the Holy Cow

Resume: The ElusiveHoly Cow

(concluding chapter of DN ha!s The Myth of the Holy Cow"

Several points emerge from our limited survey of the textual evidence, mostly drawn from Brahmanicalsources drawn from the Rgveda onwards. In the first place, it is clear that the early Aryans, who

migrated to India from outside, brought along with them certain cultural elements. After their migrationinto the Indian subcontinent pastoralism, nomadism and animal sacrifice remained characteristic

features of their lives for several centuries until sedentary field agriculture became the mainstay of their

livelihood. Animal sacrifices were very common, the most important of them being the famousasvamedha and rajasuya. These and several other major sacrifices involved the illing of animals

including cattle, which constituted the chief form of the wealth of the early Aryans. !ot surprisingly,

they prayed for cattle and sacrificed them to propitiate their gods. The "edic gods had no mareddietary preferences. #il, butter, barley, oxen, goats and sheep were their usual food, though some of

them seem to have had their special preferences. #ndra had a special li$ing for %ulls& 'gni was not a

tippler li$e #ndra %ut was fond of the flesh of horses %ulls and cows& The toothless Pusan, theguardian of the roads, ate mush as a $obson%s choice. Soma was the name of an intoxicant but, e&ually

important, of a god, and illing animals 'including cattle( for him was basic to most of the )gvedic

yajnas. TheMarutsand the asvinswere also offered cows. The "edas mention about *+ animals out

of which at least + were deemed fit for sacrifice, by implication for divine as well as humanconsumption. The Taittiriya Brahmanacategorically tells us- Verily the cow is food(atho annam vai

gauh) and Yajnavalkyas insistence on eating the tender 'amsala( flesh of the cow is well nown.

Although there is reason to believe that a brahmana%s cow may not have been illed, that is no index ofits inherent sanctity in the "edic period or even later.

The subse&uent Brahmanical texts 'e.g. GrhyasutrasandDharmasutras( provide ample evidence of the

eating of flesh including beef. /omestic rites and rituals associated with agricultural and otheractivities involved the illing of cattle. The ceremonial welcome of guests 'sometimes nown asarghyabut generally as madhuparka( consisted not only of a meal of a mixture of curds and honey but

also of the flesh of a cow or bull. 0arly lawgivers go to the extent of maing meat mandatory in the

madhuparka1 an injunction more or less dittoed by several later legal texts. The sacred threadceremony for its part was not all that sacred2 for it was necessary for a snataka to wear an upper

garment of cowhide.

The slaughter of animals formed an important component of the cult of the dead in the "edic texts. The

thic fat of the cow was used to cover the corpse and a bull was burnt along with it to enable thedeparted to ride in the nether world. 3unerary rites include the feeding of brahmanas after the

prescribed period and &uite often the flesh of the cow or ox was offered to the dead. The textual

prescriptions indicate the degree of satisfaction obtained by the ancestors% souls according to the animaloffered 1 cow meat could eep them content for at least a year4 The "edic and the post5"edic textsoften mention the illing of animals including the ine in the ritual context. There was, therefore, a

relationship between the sacrifice and sustenance. But this does not necessarily mean that different

types of meat were eaten only if offered in sacrifice. Archaeological evidence, in fact, suggests non5ritual illing of cattle. This is indicative of the fact that beef and other animal flesh formed part of the

dietary culture of people and that edible flesh was not always ritually consecrated.

The idea of ahimsaseems to have made its first appearance in the panisadi!thought and literature.

There is no doubt that 6autama Buddha and #ahavira vehemently challenged the efficacy of the "edic
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animal sacrifice, although a general aversion to beef and other inds of animal flesh is not borne out by

Buddhist and 7aina texts. /espite the fact that the Buddha espoused the cause of ahimsa"he is said to

have died after eating a meal of por 'sukaramaddava(. Asoa%s compassion for animals is undeniable,

though cattle were illed for food during the #auryan period as is evident from the #rthasastra of8autilya and Asoa%s own list of animals exempt from slaughter, which, significantly, does not include

the cow. The Buddhists in India and outside continued to eat various types of meat including beef even

in later times, often inviting unsavoury criticism from the 7ainas. In 9ahul, for example, Buddhists eatbeef, albeit secretly, and in Tibet they eat cows, sheep, pigs and ya.

9ie Buddhism, 7ainism also &uestioned the efficacy of animal sacrifice and enthusiastically too up

the cause of non5violence. But meat eating was so common in "edic and post5"edic times that even

#ahavira, the founder of 7ainism, is said to have eaten poultry. :erhaps the early 7ainas were no strictvegetarians. A great 7aina logician of the eighth century tells us that mons did not have objection to

eating flesh or fish given to them by the laity. In spite of all this, there is no doubt that meat became a

strong taboo among the followers of 7ainism. Its canonical and non5canonical literature providesoverwhelming evidence on the subject. The inflexibility of the 7aina attitude is deeply rooted in the

basic tenets of 7aina philosophy, which, at least in theory, is impartial in its respect for all forms of life

without according any special status to the cow. Thus, although both Buddhism, and, to a greater

extent, 7ainism contributed to the growth of ahimsadoctrine, neither seems to have developed thesacred cow concept independently.

/espite the panisadi!, Buddhist and 7aina advocacy of ahimsa, the practice of ritual and random

illing of animals including cattle continued in the post5#auryan centuries. Although #anu '* B;5A/ *( extols the virtue of ahimsa, he provides a list of creatures whose flesh was edible. $e exempts

the camel from being illed for food, but does not grant this privilege to the cow.


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!on5vegetarian dietary practices find an important place in the early Indian medical treatises, whose

chronology broadly coincides with that of the law boos ofManu and Yajnavalkya, the earlyPuranas

and the two epics. araka, 'usruta and &agbhataprovide an impressive list of fish and animals and all

three spea of the therapeutic uses of beef. The continuity of the tradition of eating beef is also echoedin early Indian secular literature till late times. In the 6upta period, alidasa alludes to the story of

Rantideva who illed numerous cows every day in his itchen. #ore than two centuries later,

Bhavabhutirefers to two instances of guest reception, which included the illing of heifer. In the tenthcentury, Rajasekharamentions the practice of illing an ox or a goat in honour of a guest. 9ater

'riharsa mentions a variety of non5vegetarian delicacies served at a da??ling marriage feast and refers

to two interesting instances of cow illing. At that time, however, 'omesvara shows clear preferencefor por over other meats and does not mention beef at all.

@hile the above references, albeit limited in number, indicate that the ancient practice of illing the

ine for food continued till about the twelfth century, there is considerable evidence in the

commentaries on theavya literature and the earlierDharmasastra texts to show that the Brahmanicalwriters retained its memory till very late times. Among the commantators on the secular literature,

andupandita from 6ujarat, $arahari from Telengana in Andhra :radesh, and Mallinatha who is

associated with the ingDevaraya **of &idyanagara (&ijayanagara), clearly indicate that, in earlier

times, the cow was done to death for rituals and hence for food. As late as the eighteenth centuryGhanasyama, a minister for a Tanjore ruler, states that the illing of cow in honour of a guest was the

ancient rule.

Similarly the authors of Dharmasastra commentaries and religious digests from the ninth centuryonwards eep alive the memory of the archaic practice of beef eating and some of them even go so far

as to permit beef in specific circumstances. 3or example,Medhatithi"probably a 8ashmiri brahmana,

says that a bull or ox was illed in honour of a ruler or anyone deserving to be honoured, and

unambiguously allows eating the flesh of cow 'govyajamamsam( on ritual occasions. Several otherwriters of exegetical wors seem to lend support to this view, though sometimes indirectly. &is+arupa

of Mal+a, probably a pupil of 'ankara, &ijnanesvara who may have lived not far fromalyana in

modern 8arnataa, ,aradatta, also a southerner 'daksinatya(, -akshmidhara, a minister of the

Gahad+ala ing,emadri, $arasimha a minister of the Yadavas of Devagiri, andMitra Misra fromGopa!ala '6walior( support the practice of illing a cow on special occasions. Thus even when the

Dharmasastra commentators view cow illing with disfavour, they generally admit that it was anancient practice but to be avoided in the kali age.

@hile the above evidence is indicative of the continuity of the practice of beef eating, the lawgivers

had already begun to discourage it around the middle of the first millennium when society began to be

gradually feudali?ed, leading to major socio5cultural transformation. This phase of transition, firstdescribed in the epic andpurani!passages as the kaliyuga, i.e. kalivarjyas. @hile the list of kalivarjyas

swelled up over time, most of the relevant texts mention cow slaughter, as forbidden in the kaliyuga.

According to some early medieval lawgivers a cow iller was an untouchable and one incurred sin even

by taling to him. They increasingly associated cow illing and beef eating with the proliferatingnumber of untouchable castes. It is, however, interesting that some of them consider these acts as no

more than minor behavioural aberrations.

0&ually interesting is the fact that almost all the prescriptive texts enumerate cow illing as a minor sin

'upapataka(, not a major offence 'mahapataka(. #oreover, the 'mrti texts provide easy escape routesby laying down expiatory procedures for intentional as well as inadvertent illing of the cow. This may

imply that cattle slaughter may not have been uncommon in society, and the atonements were

prescribed merely to discourage eating of beef. To what extent the Dharmasastri! injunctions wereeffective, however, remains a matter of speculation2 for the possibility of at least some people eating


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beef on the sly cannot be ruled out. As recently as the late nineteenth century it was alleged that)wami *ive$ananda ate %eef during his stay in 'merica though he vehemently defended his

action. Also, Mahatma +andhi spo$e of the hypocrisy of the orthodo, Hindus who do not so mu!h

as hesitate or in.uire +hen during the illness the do!tor / pres!ribes them bee0 tea1 0ven today *communities in 8erala 1 not all of them untouchable perhaps 1 prefer beef to the expensive mutton

and the $indutva forces are persuading them to go easy on it.

Although cow slaughter and the eating of beef gradually came to be viewed as a sin and a source ofpollution from the early medieval period, the cow and its products 'mil, curds, clarified butter, dungand urine( or their mixture calledpan!agavyahad assumed a purificatory role much earlier. "edic texts

attest to the ritual use of cow%s mil and mil products, but the term pan!agavyaoccurs for the first

time in theBaudhayana Dharmasutra.Manu, &isnu, &asistha, Yajnavalkya and several later lawgiverslie#tri,Devala andParasara mention the use of the mixture of the five products of the cow for both

purification and expiation. The commentaries and religious digests, most of which belong to the

medieval period, abound in references to the purificatory role of the pan!agavya. It is interesting thatthe medical treatises of araka, 'usruta and &agbhata spea of its medicinal uses. The underlying

assumption in all these cases is that thepan!agavyais pure. But severalDharmasastra texts forbid its

use by women and the lower castes. If asudra drinspan!agavya, we are told, he goes to hell.

It is curious that prescriptive texts that repeatedly refer to the purificatory role of the cow, also providemuch evidence of the notion of pollution and impurity associated with this animal. According to Manu,

the food smelt by a cow has to be purified.

conclusion- the myth of holy cow.pdf

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