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The communalists who have been raising a hullabaloo over the cow in
the political arena do not realise that beef eating remained a fairly
common practice for a long time in India and that the arguments for
its prevalence are based on the evidence drawn from our own scriptures
and religious texts. The response of historical scholarship to the
communal perception of Indian food culture, however, has been sober
and scholars have drawn attention to the textual evidence of beef
eating which, in fact, begins to be available from the oldest Indian
religious text Rgveda, supposedly of divine origin. H.H. Wilson,
writing in the first half of the nineteenth century, had asserted:
"the sacrifice of the horse or of the cow, the gomedha or asvamedha,
appears to have been common in the earliest periods of the Hindu
ritual". The view that the practice of killing of cattle at sacrifices
and eating their flesh prevailed among the Indo-Aryans was put forth
most convincingly by Rajendra Lal Mitra in an article which first
appeared in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and
subsequently formed a chapter of his book The Indo-Aryans published in
1891. In 1894 William Crooke, a British civil servant, collected an
impressive amount of ethnographic data on popular religious beliefs
and practices in his two-volume book and devoted one whole chapter to
the respect shown to animals including the cow[9]. Later in 1912, he
published an informative piece on the sanctity of cow in India. But he
also drew attention to the old practice of eating beef and its
survival in his own times.[10] In 1927, L. L. Sundara Ram made a
strong case for cow protection for which he sought justification from
the scriptures of different religions including Hinduism. However he
did not deny that the Vedic people ate beef, [11] though he blamed the
Muslims for cow slaughter. Later in the early forties P. V. Kane in
his monumental work History of Dharmasastra referred to some Vedic and
early Dharmasastric passages which speak of cow killing and beef
eating. H.D. Sankalia drew attention to literary as well as
archaeological evidence of eating cattle flesh in ancient India.[12]
Similarly, Laxman Shastri Joshi, a Sanskritist of unquestionable
scholarship, drew attention to the Dharmasastra works, which
unequivocally support the prevalence of the practice of flesh eating
including beef eating in early India.[13]
Needless to say that the scholarship of all of the scholars mentioned
above was unimpeachable, and that none of them seems to have anything
to do with any anti- Hindu ideology. H.H. Wilson, for example, was the
first occupant of the Chair of Sanskrit at Oxford in 1832 and was not
as avowedly anti-Indian as many other imperialist scholars. Rajendra
Lal Mitra, a product of the Bengal renaissance and a close associate
of Rabindranath's elder brother Jyotindranath Tagore, made significant
contribution to India's intellectual life, and was described by Max
Mueller as the best living Indologist' of his time and by
Rabindranath Tagore as "the most beloved child of the muse".[14]
William Crooke was a well-known colonial ethnograher who wrote
extensively on peasant life and popular religion without any marked
prejudice against Hinduism.[15] L. L. Sundara Ram, despite his
somewhat anti-Muslim feeling, was inspired by humanitarian
The Vedic gods, for whom the various sacrifices were performed, had no
fixed menu of food. Milk, butter, barley, oxen, goats and sheep were
offered to them and these were their usual food, though some of them
seem to have had their special preferences. Indra had a special liking
for bulls (RV, V.29.7ab; VI.17.11b; VIII.12.8ab X.27.2c; X. 28.
3c;X.86.14ab). Agni was not a tippler like Indra, but was fond of
animal food including the flesh of horses, bulls and cows (RV, VIII.
43.11; X. 91.14ab). The toothless Pusan, the guardian of the roads,
ate mush as a Hobson's choice. Soma was the name of a heady drink
but, equally importantly, of a god and killing of animals including
cattle for him (RV, X.91.14ab) was basic to most of the Rgvedic
yajnas. The Maruts and the Asvins were also offered cows. The Vedas
mention about 250 animals out of which at least 50 were deemed fit for
sacrifice and by implication for divine as well as human consumption.
The animal food occupied a place of importance in the Vedic sacrifices
and dietetics and the general preference for the flesh of the cow is
undeniable. The Taittiriya Brahmana (III.9.8) categorically tells us:
"Verily the cow is food" (atho annam vai gauh) and the Satapatha
Brahmana (III.1.2.21) refers to Yajnavalkya's stubborn insistence on
eating the tender (amsala) flesh of the cow.
According to the subsequent Brahmanical texts (e.g. Grhyasutras and
Dharmasutras) the killing of animals and eating of beef was very much
de rigeur. The ceremony of guest-reception (known as arghya in the
Rgveda but generally as madhuparka in subsequent texts) consisted not
only of a meal of a mixture of curds and honey but also of the flesh
of a cow or bull. Early lawgivers go to the extent of making flesh
food mandatory in madhuparka --- an injunction more or less dittoed
by several later legal texts (AsGS, I.24.33; KathaGS, 24,20; SankhGS,
II.15.2; ParGS, I.3.29). A guest therefore came to be described by
Panini as a goghna (one for whom the cow is slain). The sacred thread
ceremony was not all that sacred; for it was necessary for a snataka
to wear an upper garment of the cowhide (ParGS, II.5.17-20).
The slaughter of animals formed an important component of the cult of
the dead in the Vedic texts as well as in later Dharmasastra works.
The thick fat of the cow was used to cover the dead body (RV, X.14-18)
and a bull was burnt along with the corpse to enable the departed to
ride with in the nether world. The funerary rites included feeding of
the brahmins after the prescribed period and quite often the flesh of
the cow/ ox was offered to the dead (AV, XII.2, 48). The textual
prescriptions indicate the degree of satisfaction obtained by the
Manes depending upon the animal offered---- the cow's flesh could keep
them contented for at least a year! The Vedic and the post-Vedic
texts also often mention the killing of animals including the kine in
several other ritual contexts. The gavamayana, a sessional sacrifice
performed by the brahmins was, for example, marked by animal slaughter
culminating in an extravagant bacchanalian communal festival
(mahavrata) in which cattle were slaughtered. There was, therefore, a
relationship between the sacrifice and sustenance. But this need not
necessarily mean that different meat types were eaten only if offered
III
etc) and birds (e.g. partridge) whose flesh could satisfy the Manes
(I.258-61). According to him a student, teacher, king, close friend
and son-in-law should be offered arghya every year and a priest should
be offered madhuparka on all ritual occasions (I.110). He further
enjoins that a learned brahmin (srotriya) should be welcomed with a
big ox or goat (mahoksam va mahajam va srotriyayopakalpayet) delicious
food and sweet words. This indicates his endorsement of the earlier
practice of killing cattle at the reception of illustrious guests.
Yajnavalkya, like Manu, permits eating of meat when life is in danger,
or when it is offered in sacrifices and funerary rites (i.179). But
unconsecrated meat (vrthamamsam, anupakrtamamsani), according to him,
is a taboo (I.167, 171) and any one killing animals solely for his own
food and not in accordance with the Vedic practice is doomed to go to
hell for as many days as the number of hair on the body of the victim
(I.180). Similarly Brhaspati (AD 300-500), like Manu, recommends
abstention from liquor (madya), flesh (mamsa) and sexual intercourse
only if they are not lawfully ordained[24] which implies that whatever
was lawful was permitted. The lawgivers generally accept as lawful all
those sacrifices, which, according to them, have Vedic sanction. The
sacrificial slaughter of animals and domesticated bovines, as we have
seen, was a Vedic practice and therefore may have been fairly common
among the Brahmanical circles during the early Christian centuries and
even well into the later half of the first millennium AD. It would be,
however, unrealistic to assume that the dharmic precept of restricting
animal slaughter to ritual occasions was always taken seriously either
by brahmins for whom the legal injunctions were meant or by other
sections of society.[25] It is not surprising, therefore, that
Brhaspati, while discussing the importance of local customs, says that
in Madhyadesa the artisans eat cows (madhyadese karmakarah silpinasca
gavasinah).[26]
The evidence from the epics is quite eloquent. Most of the characters
in the Mahabharata are meat eaters and it makes a laudatory reference
to the king Rantideva in whose kitchen two thousand cows were
butchered everyday, their flesh, along with grains, being distributed
among the brahmins (III.208.8-9)[27]. Similarly the Ramayana of
Valmiki makes frequent reference to the killing of animals including
the cow for sacrifice as well as food. Rama was born after his father
Dasaratha performed a big sacrifice involving the slaughter of a large
number of animals declared edible by the Dharmasastras, which, as we
have seen, sanction ritual killing of the kine. Sita, while crossing
the Yamuna, assures her that she would worship her with thousand cows
and a hundred jars of wine when Rama accomplishes his vow. Her
fondness for deer meat drives her husband crazy enough to kill Marici,
a deer in disguise. Bharadvaja welcomes Rama by slaughtering a fatted
calf in his honour.[28]
The non-vegetarian dietary practices find an important place in the
early Indian medical treatises, whose chronology broadly coincides
with that of the law books of Manu and Yajnavalkya, and the two epics.
Caraka (1st-2nd century), Susruta (3rd 4th century) and Vagbhata (7th
cow's milk and milk products, but the term pancagavya occurs for the
first time in the Baudhayana Dharmasutra. The law books of Manu,
Visnu, Vasistha, Yajnavalkya and those of several later lawgivers like
Atri, Devala and Parasara 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
pancagavya. The underlying assumption in all these cases is that the
pancagavya is pure. But several Dharmasastra texts forbid its use by
women and the lower castes. If a sudra drinks pancagavya, we are told,
he goes to hell.[50]
It is curious that the prescriptive texts, which repeatedly refer to
the purificatory role of the cow, also provide much evidence of the
notion of pollution and impurity associated with this animal.
According to Manu (V.125) the food smelt by the cow has to be
purified. Other early lawgivers like Visnu (XXIII.38) and Yajnavalkya
(I.189) also express similar views. The latter in fact says that while
the mouth of the goat and horse is pure that of the cow is not. Among
the later juridical texts, those of Angirasa, Parasara, Vyasa and so
on, support the idea of the cow's mouth being impure. The lawgiver
Sankha categorically states that all limbs of the cow are pure except
her mouth. The commentaries on different Dharmasastra texts reinforce
the notion of impurity of the cow's mouth. All this runs counter to
the ideas about the purificatory role of the cow.
Needless to say, then, that the image of the cow projected by Indian
textual traditions, especially the Brahmanical- Dharmasastric works,
over the centuries is polymorphic. Its story through the millennia is
full of inconsistencies and has not always been in conformity with
dietary practices prevalent in society. It was killed and yet the
killing was not killing. When it was not slain, mere remembering the
old practice of butchery satisfied the brahmins. Its five products
including faeces and urine have been pure but its mouth has not been
so. Yet through these incongruous attitudes and puzzling paradoxes the
Indian cow has struggled its way to sanctity. But its holiness is
elusive. For, there is no cow- goddess, nor any temple in her
honour.[51] Nevertheless the veneration of this animal has come to be
viewed as a characteristic trait of modern day non-existent monolithic
Hinduism' bandied about by the Hindutva forces.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------[1] L.L. Sundara Ram, Cow Protection in India, The South Indian
Humanitarian League, George Town, Madras, 1027, pp.122-123, 179-190.
[2] Siva Digvijaya quoted in Sundara Ram, op. cit. p.191.
[3] Sandria B. Freitag, "Contesting in Public: Colonial Legacies and
Contemporary Communalism", in David Ludden, ed., Making India Hindu,
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996, p.217.
[4] Idem, Collective Action and Community: Public Arena and the
Emergence of Communalism in North India, Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1990, Chapter 6; Gyan Pandey, Rallying round the Cow', in
Subaltern Studies, Vol.. II, Ranajit Guha, (ed.), Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1983, pp. 60- 129.
[5] Frederick J. Simoons, "Questions in the Sacred-Cow Controversy",
Current Anthropology, 20(3), September 1979, p.468.
[6] The Times of India, 28 May 1999, p.12.
[7] Frontline, 13 April 2001.
[8] Rajesh Ramachandran, "A Crisis of Identity", The Hindustan Times,
7 May 2000.
[9] W. Crooke, The Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India, 2
Vols, Delhi: 4th reprint, Munshiram Manoharlal, 1978.
[10] W. Crooke, The Veneration of the Cow in India', Folklore, 13
(1912), pp.275-306.
[11] Sundara Ram, Cow Protection in India, Madras: The South Indian
Humanitarian League, 1927, p.8, passim.
[12] H.D. Sankalia, " (The Cow) In History", Seminar No. 93, May 1967.
[13] "Was the Cow Killed in Ancient India?" Quest, (75), MarchApril 1972, pp. 83-87.
[16] J.C. Heesterman translates a passage of the Kathaka Samhita
(8.7:90.10) relating to the agnadheya as: they kill a cow, they play
a dice for [shares in] her, they serve her up to those seated in the
assembly hall': Broken World of Sacrifice, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1993, p.283, note 33.
[17] Louis Renou, Vedic India, Varanasi, reprint, Indological Book
House, 1971 p.109.
[18] R.L. Mitra, Indo-Aryans: Contributions to the Elucidation of
Ancient and Medieval History, 2 Vols, Varanasi: reprint, Indological
Book House, 1969, p.363.
[19] A.B. Keith, Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanisads,
Delhi: Indian reprint, Motilal Banarsidass, 1970, p.324; P.V. Kane,
History of Dharmasastra, II, pt.2, Chapter XXXII.
[20] J. C. Heesterman, op.cit., pp. 190-93, 200-02.
[21] For different views see Hanns-Peter Schmidt, Ahimsa and
Rebirth' in Inside The Texts Beyond The Texts: New Approaches to the